CRIME – 53 people complain | Another local investment scheme goes bust

A group of 53 people have lodged a complaint to the Judiciary Police (PJ) after they failed to get back the money they deposited in an investment scheme. The case is similar to others that have been occurring recently in Macau.
The PJ stated in a press conference held yesterday that the group, composed by a large majority of local residents (48) and five citizens from mainland China, claims to have been part of a money investment scheme with a high return interest rate since 2014. Suddenly this month the scheme went bust as the regular bank cheque they used to receive every month bounced back.
The identity of the company that operated the scheme has not been disclosed by the police. However, TDM reported that it is a local firm that operates two restaurants, a beauty salon and a gallery close to the St. Paul’s Ruins.
The group of complainants informed the police they had been depositing large sums of money in this investment company in exchange for high interest rates for the past two years until suddenly and without any notice, the company closed earlier this month. The group of 53 investors were left without any contact with the people in charge of the troubled company and with losses that, for the time being, reach HKD56.5 million.
The case is currently under investigation and the police force predicted that in the next few days more members of the group of investors might reveal themselves, increasing the list of deceived people as well as the sums involved.
Business scams are apparently gaining momentum as in a separate case also reported by PJ, a mainland China resident currently working in the territory also claimed to have been the victim of a scam.
The victim wanted to open an “online shop” and requested help from people she met on the Internet. According to the victim’s report to PJ, she managed to open the shop with the help of these people to whom she eventually requested help once more, this time to promote the shop in order to get more exposure and reach more potential costumers.
The suspects this time requested from the victim an initial payment of RMB7,000 and afterwards an additional payment of RMB19,900. After these sums had been paid no work or results were presented to the victim and she felt she had been tricked and so lodged a complaint to the PJ regarding the loss of RMB26,900 (approximately MOP32,000).

Couple promised hotel room and gaming chips deal

A case of swindling has reportedly occurred at a hotel in the ZAPE area in the early hours of yesterday after a mainland couple met a man through a friend at the hotel’s lobby. The suspect offered services; to get the couple a room to stay and to exchange their money into gaming chips with benefits to them. The couple then handed the suspect a sum of HKD456,000 and in return were requested to wait for him in the lobby for about 30 minutes while he made the necessary arrangements on their behalf. After a long time, the couple tried to reach the suspect via phone calls but he stopped replying to their calls and they decided to lodge a formal complaint to the PJ.