Two men from the mainland have been arrested for defrauding two illegal currency exchange dealers out of 57,000 yuan (63,760 patacas), Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Wai Lok said during a regular press conference yesterday.
The two fraud suspects are surnamed Zhu and Peng. The two illegal currency exchange dealers, a man and a woman from the mainland arrested in Macau for their currency exchange activities, are surnamed Tao and Du. They are in their twenties and thirties.
According to Ho, the quartet met outside a casino in Cotai on Thursday to engage in an illegal currency exchange. In the deal, Zhu and Peng were supposed to give Tao and Du casino chips worth HK$62,000 in return for 57,000 yuan via bank transfers.
After completing the bank transaction, Zhu and Peng suddenly reneged on the agreement and tried to run away. This prompted a dispute between the two parties, which caught the attention of nearby police. The officers intervened and took everyone to a police station for questioning.
Police discovered only HK$10,000 in casino chips and several thousand in cash on Zhu and Peng, leading them to suspect that Zhu and Peng had never had the funds for the deal and were attempting to commit fraud from the start, Ho said.
The quartet have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), Zhu and Peng face fraud charges, while Tao and Du face illegal currency exchange charges.
This undated handout photo provided by the Judiciary Police (PJ) yesterday shows the evidence seized from the suspects.
