Crime | Two Hong Kong drug dealers caught by Macau police

The Judiciary Police (PJ) told a press conference yesterday about the resolution of two drug dealing cases uncovered during the previous week. However, the bureau said no connection between the cases and the summer holiday could be drawn. The bureau also released information about a swindling case “of considerable scale.”

Both cases involved Hong Kong residents who crossed the sea to sell narcotics in Macau. Police intelligence indicates that they had been hired by cartels in Hong Kong.

The first case involved a 16-year-old suspect surnamed Yip, who sold cocaine in bars in the NAPE area. At 10 p.m. on September 3, PJ investigators saw Yip walking out of a NAPE hotel. Yip was immediately stopped and questioned. The police found 17.3g of cocaine in Yip’s black bag.

Afterwards, the investigators conducted a search at Yip’s hotel room, seizing 10.82g of cocaine and tools amounting to a total black market price of MOP100,000. Suspected revenue from the drugs of HKD19,000 and MOP10,000 were also seized.

Yip confessed that he was in need of cash, so he took the job for a daily rate of HKD500 to 1,000, depending on the day’s revenue. He was involved in the drug dealing for about a week before being caught.

Another case involved a 41-year-old female surnamed Chan, who is a drug user and also sold cocaine in the NAPE area. On September 4 in the early morning, Chan was spotted exiting a NAPE hotel by PJ investigators who found 38 small packs of cocaine (weighing 11.16g) on her. At her hotel room, the investigators seized 9.4g of cocaine, 0.53g of methamphetamine, 12 pieces of midazolam, 0.76g of heroine, and 10 injection needles, two of which appeared to be used, among other paraphernalia needed for drug administration and use. All narcotics were worth MOP70,000.

She confessed she started her work in August for daily pay of some HKD1,000, not inclusive of access to a certain amount of narcotics. She said she had sold about 20g of drugs.

In a separate case, a male scam victim informed the PJ on September 3 that a man, surnamed Wang, along with another mainland man on the run (hereinafter referred to as the second suspect), had scammed his money by claiming that they could provide privileged currency exchange services. The victim reported a total loss of RMB390,000.

On August 28, the victim connected over an instant messaging platform with the second suspect, who claimed that currency exchange services could be provided at a better exchange rate.

Because he had planned to visit Macau for leisure, the victim was interested in an exchange of HKD500,000 for RMB390,000. Based on the official exchange rate on that date, the victim should have got about HKD420,000 instead.

The victim was told to open a bank account in Hong Kong to facilitate the deal, which he did. Upon arriving in Macau, Wang became the point of contact for the victim. The deal seemed to be successful as the victim received a text message noting an incoming credit of HKD500,000 into his account in Hong Kong.

He then remitted RMB390,000 to the second suspect’s mainland account before he received another message that the incoming transaction was canceled. Wang claimed he had nothing to do with it.

However, the victim could not retrieve his money the following day, so he decided to report to the police and sue Wang, who refused to cooperate in the investigation.

However, the PJ managed to prove his role in the scam, and so the case has been forwarded to the judicial authorities. Anthony Lam