The police arrested a man on Monday for cheating a number of locals and mainlanders through Macau’s first telecom fraud transmission centre, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lai Man Wai said in a special press conference yesterday.
According to Lai, the 29-year-old suspect is surnamed Chan. He told the police that he is a non-resident worker employed as a waiter by a local restaurant. He is from the Taiwan region, Lai added.
Lai said that the centre had been active since the end of last year. The police conducted a joint investigation into the case with the Zhuhai Public Security Bureau (PSB) through their official notification mechanism in conjunction with the Central People’s Government Liaison Office in Macau and the Guangdong Public Security Bureau.
Based on intelligence gathered by the cross-border investigation, the Judiciary Police discovered that a criminal organisation was using two rented flats in the same residential estate in the northern district to operate the telecom fraud transmission centre.
According to Lai, the criminals used the geographical advantage of the flats’ location close to the mainland to send out scam calls appearing to be transmitted by mainland telecom network signals, initially misleading the police investigation and making it more difficult for the police to gather cross-border evidence.
‘In business’ for over 7 months
Under questioning, Chan admitted that the gang had been operating for over seven months. The gang sent out scam calls with fake voice messages appearing to originate from mainland government departments and delivery companies.
The cross-border investigation identified Chan as one of the suspected key gang members and Judiciary Police officers arrested him in the street in Iao Hon district early on Monday. Over 460 SIM cards for use in different provinces and cities on the mainland were seized from Chan, according to Lai.
Chan told the police that he was paid a basic salary of NT$40,000 (10,450 patacas) per month, aside from a 20 percent “commission” for each successful fraud. His job was to maintain and operate the telecommunication facilities in the two flats, according to Lai.
Moreover, nine telecommunication devices, a back-up electricity generator and a number of computer terminals and routers were found in the two flats, Lai said, adding that eight of the devices were operating when the police raided the flats.
Two Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the hooded telecom fraud suspect from the Taiwan region to a vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. Photo: Iong Tat Choi
This handout photo, taken on Monday, and provided by the Judiciary Police (PJ) yesterday shows the telecommunication equipment in one of the telephone fraud gang’s two flats in Iao Hon district.
