Four people from the mainland have been apprehended for defrauding a local 70-year-old woman on the street by peddling purportedly valuable traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Public Security Police (PSP) Lam Keong said in a regular press conference yesterday.
According to Lam, the group, comprising three women and one man aged between 50 and 65, targeted the victim on Rua de Nam Keng (南京街) in Taipa on Tuesday. Initially, one of the female suspects engaged the victim in a conversation about the purportedly valuable TCM product, with the other two female suspects later joining in to promote the product to the elderly woman.
Subsequently, the male suspect, masquerading as a TCM vendor, entered the conversation and sold the remedy to the victim for 18,600 patacas. The victim soon realised she had fallen victim to a scam and promptly reported the case to the police.
Later that day, the quartet were apprehended at a hotel in the city centre. The police confiscated a total of 5.2 kilogrammes of young sliced mulberry branches which the quartet used to pretend to be precious TCM, along with the ill-gotten gains. TCM shop owners told the police that the mulberry branches seized were worth 300 patacas, Lam pointed out.
Under questioning, the quartet admitted to the crime. They told the police that they had also scammed another victim out of 200 patacas since their stay in Macau last Friday.
The quartet have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing organised crime and fraud charges.
This undated photo provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) yesterday shows evidence including the young sliced mulberry branches seized from the suspects.
