Secretary Wong (center) highlights cases of unlawful detention and loan sharking
The city has witnessed a significant rise in gaming-related crime over the past quarter, acknowledged the Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak. While announcing the police’s latest crime statistics last Friday, Wong said that this year’s gaming-related criminal cases had surged to 679 cases, up 34.5 percent from the previous year.
Amongst these, the Secretary warned that criminal cases involving unlawful detention and loan sharking have increased between March and June. During the first half of this year, a total of 170 unlawful detention cases were recorded, reflecting a 112.5 percent increase year-on-year. The surge in illegal detentions also drove violent crimes up by 3 percent to 410, while usury cases increased by 39.1 percent to 153.
Despite the growth, Wong believes that “so far there hasn’t been enough evidence to show the adjustment in the gaming industry has [negatively affected] Macau’s public security.” He explained the police’s proactive enforcement actions have led to more crackdowns on those crimes, and that victims and suspects were mostly not local residents.
“73 and 54 percent of [the respective] types of criminal cases were opened as the police proactively launched enforcement actions; most of those cases occurred inside casinos, which means these crimes haven’t affected the public security outside casinos,” he stated, adding that the police have received no triad-related alerts brought about by the industry downturn.
Wong also noted a decline in other violent cases that directly or severely affected social public security. There were no serious violent crimes of murder, kidnapping or triad-related crimes; the recorded number of crime groups remained at 6, with all being busted; and 12 out of the 13 arson cases – although almost double the number of cases the previous year – were revealed to be unrelated to triads or casino interests.
Nevertheless, the Secretary stressed that security authorities will “stay on high alert and closely monitor the situations so as to prevent incidents from occurring.” He pledged to “continue watching closely the possible impact of the gaming industry adjustment on public security, and deploy effective crackdown operations targeting the dynamics and trends in criminal activities.”
The first half of this year also witnessed a slight decrease in the number of overall crime cases, down by 0.9 percent year-on-year to 7,025.
“Crimes jeopardizing the territory”, which include offenses against the authorities and obstruction of justice, rose 37.5 percent to 583 cases. Of these, instances of disobedience and false declaration saw a respective increase of 44.6 percent and 33.7 percent.
Moreover, the authorities prosecuted a total of 3,037 cases of taxi irregularities during the first six months of this year, whereas the number recorded in the same period a year earlier was merely 539.
On the other hand, the police recorded significant declines in the incidences of drug-selling and drug abuse, with the former down by 33.9 percent whilst the latter was halved. Additionally, cases of identity theft and subsequent usage dropped by 39.3 percent, whereas counterfeit currency cases fell by 55.4 percent. BY
Fewer illegal migrants than last year
The first six months saw a year-on-year plunge in illegal entry and over-staying of visas, reducing the crimes to 16,720 cases. However, cases of decoying, assisting, accommodating and employing illegal immigrants rose by 8.9 percent to 257 cases.
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