CRIME | Thievery in hotel rooms hits city over the weekend

Several thefts in different hotel rooms occurred in the territory over the weekend, the Judiciary Police (PJ) revealed yesterday during a press conference.
The unrelated cases took place in hotel units in Taipa and Cotai and targeted tourists from mainland China and Japan.
In one of the cases, two tourists from Japan were robbed of some of their property after leaving their luggage in their room to take part in a sightseeing tour.
The two tourists who were staying in a hotel located in Taipa, only noticed the next day that their luggage stored in the room had been disturbed and that they were missing one passport, a credit card, RMB2,000 in cash, a wallet worth USD500 and a laptop computer worth USD1,000.
A separate incident occurred on Friday involving another tourist, this time from mainland China, who claims to have lost a valuable wristwatch that disappeared overnight.
The tourist in question had spent the night in the hotel room with a woman from mainland China who, in addition to the tourist’s HKD600,000 wristwatch, also disappeared overnight.
In a similar but separate case, a 50-year-old male has lost casino chips to the sum of HKD200,000 after a night playing in a casino in the company of a 41-year-old lady from mainland China who afterward spent the night in his hotel room.
In the morning, the man noticed the absence of the lady who is alleged to have stolen the casino chips.
Four days after the incident occurred a new development transpired when police authorities intercepted the accused as she was attempting to enter the MSAR at the Border Gate checkpoint.
Questioned by the PJ, the woman confessed to having committed the crime; explaining that she had traded the chips for cash before attempting to retreat to the mainland.
From the original theft of HKD200,000, only about HKD33,000 was recovered by the police. The woman claimed that she had already spent the remainder.
Additionally, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) caught two women (aged 43 and 32) from mainland China involved in mobile phone theft scheme.
The police force said that during an anti-pickpocket operation held in Rua da Palha on Saturday they spotted two women acting suspiciously.
A follow-up of their activities revealed that one of them was stealing mobile phones from customers’ in the area, using an umbrella to disguise her actions. Afterward she would pass the stolen goods to the other women for storage.
Both were “caught in act” but that was just the “tip of the iceberg” as further questioning and a search of their backpacks and lodgings revealed that both had stolen a total of 11 mobile phones.