The Public Security Police (PSP) have arrested a local man in his sixties for picking up a backpack containing 100,000 patacas in cash left on a bus by a passenger and keeping it, part of which he gambled away, with only 12,000 patacas recovered.
PSP spokesman Lam Keong said during a regular press conference yesterday that the jobless suspect, surnamed Ng, has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) for a possible theft-by-finding charge.
A local woman reported to the Public Security Police last Friday night that carrying a backpack she had got on a bus in Praça de Ferreira do Amaral (亞馬喇前地) and got off near the CTM headquarters on Avenida Dr Sun Yat-Sen (孫逸仙博士大馬路) in Taipa, but left her backpack on the bus.
The Public Security Police identified the suspect in the case, Ng, and intercepted him in the afternoon of the following day near the place where the victim had alighted from the bus, according to Lam.
Under questioning, Lam noted, the suspect admitted to having picked up the victim’s backpack on the bus and taken 100,000 patacas that he found in it, insisting that he had spent some of the money on gambling and given another some to a friend.
The Public Security Police recovered 12,000 patacas of the stolen cash from Ng’s home.
This undated handout photo provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) yesterday shows the local theft-by-finding suspect being escorted by PSP officers to a police station in Taipa.
