A Hong Kong man was hired by a “guess who I am” telecom fraud gang to travel to Macau to pick up money from a senior citizen, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Kim Fong said at a special press conference yesterday.
According to the female victim’s report, Cheong said, she received on June 20 a call from a man, claiming to be her “nephew”, on her fixed-line telephone at home, telling the victim that he had been arrested for injuring someone, urging her to hand 220,000 patacas in cash to a “legal assistant” in order to compensate the injured person.
The victim handed the money to a man, the 28-year-old Hong Kong man surnamed Chik, on the ground floor of her residential building in the city centre later that day.
Afterwards, the victim received a call from the purported “nephew” again, demanding more cash. She gave another HK$300,000 this time to a female “legal assistant” from the gang.
When the scammers called for the third time demanding more money, the victim finally became suspicious. She later called her nephew and realised that she had been defrauded, leading her to report the case to the police.
PJ officers reviewed the CCTV footage near her home, and identified Chik as one of the suspects who picked up the money.
Chik re-entered Macau on Sunday via the Taipa Ferry Terminal and was intercepted at the checkpoint.
Under questioning, the suspect refused to cooperate. Police were still investigating the whereabouts of his accomplice, “the other legal assistant”, at the time of the press conference.
Chik was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, where he faces charges of organised crime and fraud.
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: William Chan
