The Judiciary Police (PJ) said that the suspect of a pawnshop robbery on Monday in
Avenida da Praia Grande was arrested yesterday in Zhongshan, some 40 kilometres north of Macau, by the Public Security Bureau (PSB).
The announcement was made by the Judiciary Police (PJ) yesterday in a special press conference.
PJ spokesman Ho Chan Nam identified the suspect as a 39-year-old man surnamed Zhang from Jilin province, some 2,600 kilometres north of Macau, who claimed to be unemployed.
The robbery occurred at around 2:30 a.m. on Monday when Zhang went into the pawnshop and told a staff member that he wanted to exchange yuan into Hong Kong dollars to buy a watch. The staff member took a watch from the shop’s showcase and went into the shop’s cage followed by Zhang, who tasered the employee’s head and took a large quantity of money from a cash register and fled.
Ho confirmed the cash Zhang took from the pawnshop was HK$400,000. Earlier reports had put the robber’s loot at HK$300,000.
During the investigation, Ho said, police officers found the taser used by the suspect in the vicinity of the pawnshop while CCTV footage showed that he ran towards Avenida da Amizade. The police found items Zhang abandoned in a park near the avenue, including some clothes and a cap. He changed his clothes there before he took a taxi to the Lotus Flower Bridge checkpoint and left Macau.
According to Ho, the local police had immediately notified their mainland counterparts about the robbery. Mainland police officers arrested the suspect in an inn in Tanzhou, a district in Zhongshan, at 2 a.m. yesterday, and confiscated HK$300,000. Under questioning, Zhang admitted the crime, according to Ho who did not reveal the whereabouts of the remaining HK$100,000.
The police believe that Zhang purchased the taser on the mainland, according to Ho. He noted that Zhang entered Macau on Friday via the Barrier Gate checkpoint. The police were still investigating yesterday how he managed to smuggle the taser into the city.
Meanwhile, Ho noted that the staff member injured by the taser has meanwhile been discharged from the hospital.
Ho also said that Zhang remained under detention in Zhongshan. However, he did not say whether Zhang would be transferred to Macau to stand trial here.
According to Article 204 of the Macau Penal Code, if tried in Macau Zhang faces a prison term up of up to 15 years since his action potentially endangered a person’s life.
This photo taken by Public Security Bureau (PSB) personnel in Zhongshan yesterday and provided by the Judiciary Police (PJ) shows the suspect (centre) being arrested by PSB officers in Zhongshan city’s Tanzhou district. The three faces were blurred out by the Public Security Bureau.
This handout photo provided by the Judiciary Police (PJ) yesterday shows the taser used by the suspect in Monday’s pawnshop robbery behind Grand Lisboa.
