Crime | Scamming the scammer’s wife

The Judiciary Police (PJ) have learned that a female resident of Macau has been scammed by a local man in a case that dates back to early 2015 and is related to her husband.

According to the PJ spokesperson, the husband of the victim, a man from the mainland, had been involved in a previous scam case which resulted in a penalty that banned him from entering the region for a period of five years.

The suspect, a local cook, knowing about the case, pretended to be a lawyer and offered the wife his supposed expertise in filing an appeal that would grant the man a reduction on the ban period.

The lawyer-impersonator asked for an honorary advancement in the amount of MOP35,000 to prepare the filing.

The woman accepted and paid him the requested sum, receiving in exchange three receipts.

After a period of time without news from the alleged lawyer, the woman decided to take the case into her own hands and to go the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) to check on the status of the appeal she had instructed the lawyer to file.

There she realized there was no appeal filed at the MP, nor did such a possibility exist. The victim came to the conclusion that the alleged lawyer was in fact a fraud.

After receiving a complaint from the woman, the PJ investigated and discovered that the man had already left Macau and was living in Zhuhai.

After almost four years, last weekend, the man tried to reenter Macau through the border gate checkpoint being stopped by the immigration authorities and handed to the PJ to be questioned and ultimately charged.

During the questioning he admitted to having committed the crime of which he stands accused.