Crime | Two charged over the appropriation of lost property

During yesterday’s joint police forces press conference, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) spokesperson revealed that two locals have recently been charged with the appropriation of lost property.
In the first case, a woman is accused of taking and using cash left at an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM). In the second case, a man has admitted to having used a Macau Identification Card (Macau ID) that he had found to acquire facemasks under the government mask distribution scheme.
In the first case, a 60-year-old male resident experienced difficulties at a cash machine while trying to withdraw money from his bank account. Believing there had been a malfunction, he left the scene without taking the HKD6,000 that he had attempted to withdraw from the ATM.
After filing a complaint with the bank, ATM surveillance camera footage showed that a woman, identified as a 62-year-old resident, had found the money and taken it.
Around noon on April 29, the PSP found and intercepted the suspect on Avenida da Longevidade. Questioned by the police, she admitted to having found and used the money. The case has been forwarded to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), who will charge the suspect with the offence of appropriation of lost property.
In the second case, a resident discovered that his lost Macau ID card had been used by another person to acquire facemasks under the government’s distribution scheme.
The man had reportedly lost and replaced the card in early April. When he went to a pharmacy to buy facemasks on April 17, he discovered that someone had used his old ID card to acquire the same product five days earlier in a different location.
On April 24, he tried once more to acquire the facemasks, but was informed that his ID had been recorded in the system as having acquiring facemasks two days earlier. He then reported the unlawful use of his ID to the police.
Reviewing the surveillance footage of the second pharmacy, the police were able to identify the suspect.
The 48-year-old resident was then intercepted a few days later while attempting to reenter Macau at the Border Gate checkpoint.
Upon interception, the man admitted to the unauthorized use of the ID to acquire facemasks on two occasions.
The suspect also told the police that he had found the ID on the ground in the area between the two checkpoint controls at the Gongbei border. He added that on the same occasion, his wife had found another document, this time from a Hong Kong resident, that he also used on four occasions to acquire cigarettes at Gongbei’s Duty-free shop.
Both ID owners of Macau and Hong Kong informed the police that they are seeking to press charges for the unlawful use of their IDs.