Crime | Jade scammer finally caught

A man who has been considered a suspect in a case dating back to 2015 was finally caught by the Judiciary Police (PJ), the PJ revealed yesterday during the regular joint press conference of the police forces.
The 44-year-old suspect, a man from the mainland, was accused by a 50-year-old woman, also from the mainland, of defrauding her jade-selling business in which she claims to have lost pieces of jade valued at RMB2.35 million.
Reporting the alleged crime to the PJ, the victim said that she met this man on the mainland around October 2014, and he told her that he could help her to sell jade pieces in Macau.
She also said he subsequently did help her on one occasion to sell three jade pieces for which he received a sale commission.
Around the end of 2014, the man advised her that some wealthy Macau buyers habitually buy jade at the time of the Chinese New Year, and suggested that she come to Macau with a good quantity of jade pieces to sell to these clients.
The woman accepted the deal and came to Macau and stay at a hotel arranged for her by the suspect.
This time she brought six jade pieces to sell, valued at RMB2.35 million.
At his request, the woman gave the man the jade for him to show the supposed clients. However, the man never returned to the hotel, and she lost contact with him, prompting her to report the theft to the PJ.
According to the PJ spokesperson, at this point the police had difficulties tracking the suspect since the man had entered and exited Macau illegally, without leaving any immigration record.
The same man was detained while trying to enter Macau at the Lotus Flower Border on September 4 this year, and was delivered to the PJ for questioning.
He admitted to having defrauded the woman, saying that there never were any clients wanting to buy the jade. He also said that he took the jade pieces back to the mainland where he sold them for RMB700,000, since he was in urgent need of money.
He also admitted that he had already spent the entire sum.
The man was presented to the Public Prosecutions Office on September 6 (Monday) where he was charged with the crime of aggravated fraud.

More cases of stolen credit card data

Yesterday, the PJ reported that it received another two cases related to the theft of credit card data for online purchases or payments.
The fraud has continued for several months in Macau and has already affected a large number of people.
This time, two people have reportedly lost a total of 11,376 patacas in two different transactions, reported separately on September 5 and 6.
According to the PJ, this time it was not the victims themselves who noticed the transactions. Rather, the bank notified the victims that it considered the transactions to be suspect, since the clients had no history of overseas transactions.