A female gambler was held against her will for about 34 hours at a residential flat in Zape by three loan sharks after she failed to repay a HK$50,000 debt to them, but she was eventually released after her family paid the debt for her, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Wai Lok said on Friday.
According to Friday’s special press conference, the Judiciary Police arrested a member of the gang – a 52-year-old mainland man surnamed Wang – on Wednesday night when he re-entered Macau via the Barrier Gate checkpoint. He was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing a range of charges, including usury, illegal imprisonment, and causing bodily harm.
In October last year, for gambling purposes, the mainland woman asked for a loan of HK$50,000 from the trio on condition that she would repay the gang HK$55,000 plus 20 percent of each of her winnings as “interest”. The victim was then taken by the loan sharks to a casino in Zape, where she paid HK$20,000 in “interest” to the trio. After a night of intense gambling, the victim lost all the money she had borrowed from them and was falsely imprisoned at the suspect’s rented flat in Zape.
Ho quoted the victim as noting that she was beaten on the head, arms and legs during her 34 hours of unlawful imprisonment, all of which had been filmed and sent to her family members until they repaid the money she had owed the loan shark.
Under questioning, the jobless suspect told the police that he had received HK$1,000 in “commission” for guarding and falsely imprisoning the victim as well as for collecting “interest” from her during her gambling sessions.
As noted by Ho, the other two suspects were still at large at the time of Friday’s press conference.
The hooded suspect from the mainland is escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters in Zape to a police vehicle on Friday. – Photo courtesy of TDM
