26 victims lose 1.11 million patacas
Local police and their Zhuhai counterparts have jointly busted a cross-border “guess who I am” phone fraud gang when 13 gang members were arrested in Macau while five others were arrested in Zhuhai, the Macau Judiciary Police (PJ) announced during a special press conference yesterday.
According to the press conference, 26 Macau residents had been defrauded by the gang since it started operating October last year, losing 1.11 million patacas in total.
The 13 gang members arrested in Macau comprise eight males and five females, aged between 24 and 61.
The 13 suspects, who were separately arrested by PJ officers on Tuesday, comprise nine Macau residents, two mainlanders, and two Vietnamese working in Macau.
According to the press conference, the gang’s “division of labour” was based on a clearly defined criminal hierarchy.
The five gang members arrested in Zhuhai included the gang’s mastermind. They had been separately arrested by the Zhuhai police at different times since last month.
The 13 suspects arrested in Macau include the male owner of a shop in the peninsula’s northern district selling smartphones and two employees working as salesmen.
According to yesterday’s press conference, the modus operandi of the gang was that the shop owner and his two employees stole customers’ personal information by secretly taking photos of their ID cards so that they could use the information to buy pre-paid SIM cards.
In Macau, the purchase of pre-paid SIM cards requires real-name registration.
Moreover, according to the press conference, the two Vietnamese non-resident workers (NRWs) also stole their compatriots’ personal information when they helped them fill in application forms for certain services.
In addition, the five gang members also illicitly obtained other people’s personal information by buying it online.
After purchasing pre-paid SIM cards in Macau, the quintet transferred them to their fellow members in the mainland, who then used the cards to make phone calls to potential victims.
According to the press conference, the gang had purchased over 800 pre-paid SIM cards in Macau with illicitly obtained personal information since it started operating.
Other suspects arrested in Macau were carrying out other tasks such as money laundering and receiving money from the gang’s victims.
The gang received money from its victims in Macau in over 150 accounts on different local online payment platforms, including MPay, created without real-name registration.
After receiving money from the victims, gang members in Macau bought gold jewellery with some of the ill-gotten money, while they also converted some of the money received from the victims into yuan, after which the items of gold jewellery and cash were delivered to gang members in the mainland, according to the press conference.
Money worth over 400,000 patacas had been laundered since the gang’s operation.
When PJ officers launched their operation on Tuesday, according to the press conference, they seized 140 pre-paid SIM cards, 24 smartphones, three computers, as well as cash in yuan, HK dollars and patacas equivalent to 64,000 patacas in total.
The 13 locally arrested suspects have meanwhile been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) where they face range of charges such as organised crime membership, fraud, computer forgery, illegal use of other people’s ID documents, and money laundering.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the hooded suspects to a police vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers display evidence on the sidelines of yesterday’s press conference in a pressroom at the PJ headquarters. – Photo: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
