A local man was arrested on Friday for cheating a phone shop in the Zape area out of HK$144,000, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam said at a regular press conference on Monday.
The 30-year-old suspect surnamed Lei, told the police that he is unemployed.
According to Chan, a staff member of a telephone shop reported to the Judiciary Police on February 10 last year that the shop had made a deal with Lei who claimed that he could purchase smartphones for them at a discounted price, but Lei failed to supply 16 phones involving a loss of HK$144,000, after he which he vanished.
The staff member told PJ officers that the shop had made a number of deals with Lei to purchase more than 100 phones between the end of 2018 and early 2019. In January last year, the shop had paid him for 31 phones. However, Lei only supplied 15 phones and subsequently the shop lost contact with him.
Chan said Lei was intercepted on Friday when he entered the Barrier Gate checkpoint coming from the mainland. Lei claimed that he was only in charge of delivering the phones to the shop and that he was merely a “contact person,” while another person was responsible for supplying the telephones. However, he could not explain why he stayed in the mainland for a year and a half. PJ officers later confirmed that all the deals had been done by Lei.
Lei was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Saturday, faces charges of abuse of trust and fraud, according to Chan.
