Police arrested five Hongkongers on Thursday for fraud and organised crime, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chao Teng Hin said during a special press conference on Saturday.
Chao said that the five male suspects are aged between 39 and 60, surnamed Lei, Cheng, Yu, Chan and Leung. According to Chao, the suspects said that their jobs are construction worker, cleaner, and warehouse keeper. There were five victims in the case, losing a total of 290,000 patacas, Chao said.
According to PJ Information Technology Crimes Division Supervisor Lei Chi Wai, the Judiciary Police have been continuously carrying out operations to dismantle phone scam dens, successfully raiding four of them recently. Lei pointed out that PJ investigators recently discovered that criminal groups have begun changing their tactics by sending members to Macau to purchase and register pre-paid SIM cards under real names. These cards are then taken out of Macau to be used in conducting phone scams from outside the territory, Lei Chi Wai said.
Lei Chi Wai said the investigation revealed that the police identified a fraud syndicate that had been operating since the middle of last month. The group posed as Alipay and Taobao customer service representatives to carry out their scams, falsely claiming that the victims’ fund security protection had expired and required a renewal fee, Lei Chi Wai said.
On the evening of October 9, according to Lei Chi Wai, the five suspects entered Macau and went to various telecom operators’ shops in the city centre or Taipa to purchase and register pre-paid SIM cards. The Judiciary Police intercepted the quintet on the same night at the local checkpoint of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB), seizing 41 activated pre-paid cards. Four of them admitted to having been paid HK$1,600 each to travel to Macau and register the cards, while the suspect surnamed Lei refused to cooperate, according to Lei Chi Wai.
The group of five were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Saturday facing organised crime charges, while Lei faces an additional charge of fraud.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the five suspects to a PJ van outside the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
