The Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested a female former bank manager on Tuesday for cheating a client out of 700,000 patacas, PJ spokesman Cheong Siu Keong said during a special press conference yesterday.
Cheong identified the suspect as a 41-year-old local who formerly worked as a customer service manager at a bank in the northern district.
According to Cheong, an elderly man first met the suspect at the bank in 2022. She claimed that making fixed deposits could yield higher interest rates than usual. Trusting her, the victim handed over 100,000 patacas. The suspect later claimed to offer even more favourable fixed deposit rates, convincing the victim to provide an additional 100,000 patacas.
Cheong noted that the suspect not only sent the victim forged fixed deposit slips but also paid him 7,200 patacas in purported interest to build trust. She later persuaded him to invest another 500,000 patacas. However, the victim stopped receiving slips and “interest” payments. After enquiring at the bank in October 2025, he discovered that he had been scammed and reported the case to the police, leading to the suspect’s dismissal.
The police arrested the suspect on Tuesday near her flat in the northern district. Under questioning, she admitted to defrauding the victim due to being over a million patacas in debt from cryptocurrency investments, claiming that she had already spent all the money. She also confessed that the photos of the receipts she sent were forgeries of other people’s receipts.
The suspect was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing charges of fraud and computer forgery.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the hooded fraud suspect to a PJ van outside the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Ada Lei
