Crime | PSP cracks organized fake employment business

A total of ten Macau local residents are suspects in an organized fake employment business, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) said during yesterday’s joint police press conference.
Earlier, the subdivision of non-local workers of the immigration investigated blue-card approvals between February of 2019 and May of 2020. During the reviewing process, PSP spotted a group of uncommon employment cases.
The unusual situation led to PSP cracking down on a group of ten people who were involved in a fake employment operation.
This case, which was reported yesterday, extends beyond the ten current suspects, as PSP has forwarded more than five other individuals to the prosecution authority over the course of the last two years for related matters.
In this specific case, the key suspect is Iu, a worker in his 50’s in the logistics sector.
Over the last two years, Iu has been assisting foreigners in becoming employed, presumably as domestic helpers. However, their employment was falsified. In reality, the working identity was constructed to help the foreigners stay in Macau.
Iu would visit public parks and lure middle age or senior citizens to work with him to hire foreigners, allegedly as domestic helpers. However, the employment would not be in effect.
During PSP’s vetting of the old domestic helper employment registration, the bureau discovered that a total of eight Macau middle-aged individuals and seniors had simultaneously applied to the local government for a blue-card for domestic helpers.
Working in cooperation with the Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL), PSP traced this back to Iu.
Iu’s confession revealed that not only himself and the other suspects were involved, but also that more individuals had been participating in the organized fake employment scheme.
Iu told PSP that another person, surnamed Chan (58), was the mastermind behind the operation. Previously, the police department had found Chan accountable for other fake employment cases.
Chan is allegedly Iu’s mentor. Chan persuaded Iu to search for suitable candidate employers in public gardens. Later, Iu convinced two other people to be employer scouts.
There are two people on the run who, like Iu, had the role of finding employers.
Iu got into contact with a Vietnamese woman who would arrange the employees.
In total, Iu was charging between 500 and 1,000 patacas per successful employment as commission to help individuals apply for the blue card. In turn, employees would pay between 6,000 and 17,500 patacas to the employers.
On June 12, PSP forwarded the group of people to the prosecution authority.
Civil servant lost over
MOP40,000 to ‘massage scam’
A local man has fallen victim to an online scam, the Judiciary Police (PJ) reported yesterday.
The victim, in his 50s, is a civil servant. On June 9, he became WeChat friends with a stranger who claimed to be a female student. After engaging in WeChat communications for a short period, the stranger told the victim that “she” could provide him a two-hour massage for 800 patacas. The two reached an agreement to meet in a building located in the Fai Chi Kei area.
The victim arrived at the rendezvous point, however, the “female student” failed to show up. Instead her “manager” called the victim, instructing him to buy game cards worth 800 patacas in order to pay for the massage in advance. The victim followed the order.
Later, the “manager” requested another game card worth over 7,000 patacas in order to prove the victim’s authenticity as a customer and to show that he was not a policeman. The victim obeyed the instruction.
On the third and fourth instances, the scammer asked for 16,000 patacas each time, also in game points, providing various reasons. The victim, once again, bought the cards.
Later on, the man reported the case to the police authority, suspecting that the massage was only a scam.