A Hong Kong man was arrested on Tuesday for assisting a gang in collecting fraudulently obtained money through a “guess who I am” phone scam in Macau, in which the suspect pretending to be a “lawyer” collected 250,000 patacas from an elderly local woman earlier that day in the northern district, a Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesperson said during a special press conference yesterday.
According to the spokesperson, PJ officers identified the “lawyer” as a Hong Kong man in his twenties, who told the police that he is a barista.
According to yesterday’s special press conference about the case, the victim fell for the scam on Tuesday and lost 250,000 patacas after she had received a call on her landline from her “son”, who claimed that he had injured someone and needed to pay compensation, asking her to hand over the money in cash to a “lawyer”.
The woman then withdrew the money from the bank in the afternoon on the same day, and handed the cash to the “lawyer”. However, she soon grew suspicious and contacted her real son in Macau, only to realise that she had been scammed.
The woman reported the case to the police.
After receiving the report, PJ officers put the suspect under surveillance and arrested him at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau (HKZM) Bridge checkpoint on Tuesday when he was about to leave Macau in the evening of the same day.
Under questioning, the suspect said that the proceeds he collected had been handed to the gang members, and PJ officers seized the 10,300 patacas and HK$500 he had on him, which PJ officers believed to be the payment he got for collecting the “filthy lucre”.
The suspect was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing charges of organised crime and fraud, the spokesperson said, adding that at the time of the press conference PJ officers were still tracing the whereabouts of the ill-gotten money and other suspects involved in the case.
The hooded organised crime and fraud suspect from Hong Kong is escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters to a police vehicle in Zape after yesterday’s special press conference. – Photo: Ginnie Liang
