A man and a woman were arrested on August 16 when they entered the Barrier Gate checkpoint from the mainland for their alleged involvement in two bogus marriage cases, Public Security Police (PSP) spokesman Wong Wai Chon said at a regular press conference yesterday.
The two mainland suspects comprise a 47-year-old male surnamed Lu who told the police that he is a businessman. The other suspect is a 43-year-old female surnamed Huang who told the police that she works as a clerk. They married in November 1998 in the mainland and have a son. They divorced in June 2014.
According to Wong, a local couple is also involved in the case: a local man surnamed Lou and a woman surnamed Hoi, both aged 63. They lived together but aren’t married. The police consider their relationship as a common law marriage.
According to Wong, the Identification Services Bureau (DSI) recently found two cases suspicious while processing the respective marriage registration applications in order for their family members to be allowed to move to Macau.
PSP officers discovered that Lou is Lu’s uncle. After Lu and Huang divorced in June 2014, just a month later, Lu married Hoi, his so-called aunt, and Huang married Lou, Lu’s uncle in the mainland. Afterwards, they applied for Lu and Huang to move to Macau.
The names Lu and Lou are the same Chinese name that is, however, transliterated differently in the mainland (Lu) and Macau (Lou).
PSP officers suspect that the four suspects arranged the sham marriages so that Lu and Huang could move to Macau.
Under questioning, Lu and Huang claimed that their uncle and so-called aunt had just tried to help them move to Macau and that no financial gain is involved.
Lu and Huang have been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) further questioning, facing document forgery charges. Wong said that Lou and Hoi were currently in the mainland, adding that the police would continue their investigation into the case.
This Chinese-language diagram provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) yesterday explains the two sham marriages involving the four suspects – Huang (left) Lu (bottom), Lou (top) and Hoi.
