Police warn of phone scams from ‘Macau Epidemic Prevention Centre’

The Judiciary Police (PJ) warned the public on Saturday to be wary of any call purported to be from the “Macau Epidemic Prevention Centre”, after it was reported that a fraudster, claiming to be calling from the “centre”, called a resident telling him or her that he or she was restricted from entering and exiting Macau.

A PJ statement said on Saturday that they received a report from a local resident earlier that day who had doubts about a phone call from the “Macau Epidemic Prevention Centre”.

There is no such entity called “Macau Epidemic Prevention Centre”. The police did not reveal the gender of the resident.

According to the statement, a man who claimed to be calling from the “centre” told the resident that he or she had been restricted from entering and exiting Macau. Then a voice recording in Cantonese instructed the resident to follow the instructions for more details. After doing so, a man came on the phone speaking in Putonghua. The resident hung up immediately, suspecting that it might have been a phone scam.

The police reminded all residents to be vigilant and not to be deceived.

Concerning the phone scam, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre on Saturday condemned and regretted that people are using this opportunity to cheat people. The centre stressed that the government would take legal action.

Leong Iek Hou, coordinator of the Health Bureau’s (SSM) Control of Communicable Diseases and Surveillance of Disease Department, said during the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre’s daily press conference on Saturday that anyone who claimed via the phone or the internet that he or she was calling from the government, telling the call recipient that they were barred from entering and exiting Macau, is a scam, and residents should never provide bank account details or personal identification numbers (PIN) to strangers, or even transfer money to them.