A woman from the mainland reported to the police yesterday evening that HK$3 million in cash that she had put in a bag had been stolen by four men – including her friend – at a pawnshop in Zape, the Public Security Police (PSP) said.
Last night, PSP officers set up roadblocks in various areas of the city with the aim of catching the four men. No immediate arrests were reported. The case has been transferred to the Judiciary Police (PJ) for further investigation.
Following a provisional investigation, PJ officers said they believed that the victim’s friend – in cahoots with the three other suspects – had set up the woman to steal her money.
The case occurred at a pawnshop on the ground floor of Hotel Golden Dragon in Rua de Luís Gonzaga Gomes. The victim reported the case to the police at around 6 p.m. yesterday.
According to the Public Security Police, the businesswoman in her forties told police officers that she came to Macau with her male friend and another three men shortly after midday yesterday for negotiations about a construction project. The victim said she did not know the other three men and her friend told her that the trio were his friends.
After arriving in Macau, the woman, accompanied by the four men, is understood to have reached a deal on the project. As the woman needed money to start the project, she, accompanied by the four men, went to two pawnshops in Zape where she obtained a total of HK$3 million in cash by swiping credit cards, the Public Security Police said. The woman put the HK$3 million cash in an eco-friendly bag.
The victim’s friend told her that he could help her convert the HK$3 million cash into yuan and then transfer it to the mainland. The victim’s friend then took her, along with the male trio, to the pawnshop at Hotel Golden Dragon, according to the Public Security Police.
The victim’s friend asked her to hand the bag with the HK$3 million cash to him, so that he could carry out the currency exchange and remittance. The woman’s friend, with the HK$3 million in cash, and one of the other three men went inside the pawnshop, while the victim waited outside the shop along with the other two men, according to the Public Security Police.
After waiting for a while, the woman suspected that something untoward had happened and went inside the shop to check. She saw that the two men – one of whom was her friend – had vanished. Shortly afterwards, she saw that the other two men outside the shop were running away, the Public Security Police said. The victim realised that her friend and the other man had left the shop through another door and that her friend had cheated her out of the money, after which she quickly reported the case to the police.
Police officers have identified the four men through footage obtained from closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. The manhunt was reportedly continuing early this morning.
A woman last night walks past a pawnshop on the ground floor of Hotel Golden Dragon in Zape where a female mainlander reportedly had HK$3 million in cash stolen by four men – including her friend – yesterday evening. Photo: Iong Tat Choi
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