A local woman was arrested on Monday for stealing more than HK$600,000 (US$75,000) from the cage of a VIP room in a local casino six years ago where she worked as cage cashier, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Choi Ian Fai said during the regular press conference on Tuesday.
The “cage” is the commonly used name for the cashier area of a casino or VIP room.
The suspect is a 54-year-old local woman surnamed Lai, who told the police after her arrest that she’s addicted to gambling and jobless. She had been on the run in the mainland for six years.
Choi said that a manager of a casino VIP room in Cotai reported to the police on October 21, 2014 that cash had been stolen from the cage. There were originally three staff supposed to be on duty in the VIP room on that day, but two of them were on sick leave while one had gone missing.
Afterwards, the manager discovered that HK$604,127 had gone missing from the cage and therefore reported the case to the police. The police suspected that Lai committed the crime and were looking for her but she had left Macau on that day and didn’t return to Macau for nearly six years.
Lai was arrested on Monday afternoon when she re-entered the city through the Barrier Gate checkpoint. Upon questioning, Lai confessed she had committed the crime because she was addicted to gambling and had spent all the ill-gotten money.
Lai was transferred to the Public Prosecution Office (MP) for further investigation and faces a charge of fraud involving a considerable amount, officially defined as exceeding 150,000 patacas, according to Choi.
