A man from the Chinese mainland was apprehended on Saturday for defrauding a male gambler out of HK$200,000 (206,000 patacas) in an illegal currency exchange deal, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Un Hong said during a regular press conference yesterday.
Cheong identified the suspect as a 41-year-old male surnamed Yuan who claimed to be jobless.
According to Cheong, the gambler was approached by Yuan and another man, who remained at large at the time of the press conference, at a casino in Cotai, where they offered him a currency exchange deal. After negotiations, they agreed to exchange 194,480 yuan for HK$208,000 in cash.
Cheong noted that after the victim transferred the money, Yuan claimed that a poor mobile signal prevented him from confirming the receipt of the funds, and refused to hand over the cash. Yuan then falsely claimed that the signal near the Barrier Gate checkpoint was better and suggested that the victim go with him and the other man in a taxi to verify the payment. During the taxi ride, Yuan secretly handed the cash to his accomplice.
Upon arriving at the Barrier Gate checkpoint, the accomplice made an excuse to leave first, while Yuan continued to use the purported poor signal as a reason to withhold the cash. At this point, the victim suspected he had been scammed and immediately reported the case to the police.
The police discovered that Yuan and his accomplice had been using currency exchange as a ruse to lure gamblers into transferring money. Once they had successfully obtained the funds, they would refuse to pay out cash under various pretexts. The police also discovered that Yuan would receive 10 percent of the scammed amount.
Yuan has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a fraud charge.
Only licensed currency exchange businesses are allowed to engage in the activity.
