Crime | Victim of theft turns into extortion suspect

A man who was initially the victim of a case of theft, due to the contents of a bag which he left unattended, has turned into the suspect in an extortion case, a Public Security Police Force (PSP) spokesperson informed yesterday.
During the joint press conference of the police forces held at the Judiciary Police (PJ) headquarters, the PSP informed that on October 25, the force received a call from an unidentified person who reported a theft at the Estrada dos Cavaleiros in Macau.
After deploying officers to the location, the police found two men at the scene, one from Macau and the other from the mainland.
The mainland man told police that he found the local man stealing money from his bag, which he had left unattended.
The mainland man and then-victim told the police that the local man had taken a total of MOP3,640 and RMB164 from his bag, when he was spotted and asked to return the money.
The local man admitted to taking the money from the bag, and when asked to return it, he immediately agreed and handed over the entire sum to the rightful owner.
However, the local man added that, after that, the mainland man had requested HKD2,000 in compensation in exchange for not reporting the case to the authorities.
The man said that he had already handed over the mainland man the compensation sum when the police arrived.
The mainland man admitted to the PSP that he had asked for compensation, leading the police to file an extortion case.
The case was forwarded to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on the same day as the accusation.

Thief caught robbingchurch donation box
A 33-year-old male from the mainland has been caught red-handed stealing around 3,200 patacas from the St. Augustine’s Church donation box.
The PSP reported the case at the press conference, saying that the force had been alerted to the crime following a call from an unidentified citizen reporting the man’s unlawful actions.
When the officers arrived at St. Augustine’s Square, they found a man behaving suspiciously and throwing away items, which the officers soon found was the cash and the equipment used to commit the crime.
After being questioned, the man finally admitted that he had stolen the money from the church’s donation box, using a metallic string and double-sided tape to “fish” banknotes out of the box.
According to the police, he managed to steal a sum made up of three different currencies amounting to about MOP3,200.
He was presented to the MP for aggravated theft on October 26.

Unlawful sale of ex-husband’s house
A 33-year-old local resident has finally been detained by the PJ while trying to reenter Macau on October 24.
The police had been searching for the woman since 2018, when the force received an anonymous complaint accusing her of forging documents to sell a housing unit she shared with her ex-husband, whom she had divorced a year earlier.
The case began when her husband suddenly disappeared between 2012 and 2013.
After some years without any contact and after finding a new partner, the woman decided to file for divorce. In 2017, the courts granted her the divorce.
In the meantime, she had been living in a house she was unable to sell, due to her ex-husband’s absence.
To get around this problem, she forged her ex-husband’s identification documents and used her current boyfriend to impersonate her husband, going to a private notary office, where she obtained a power of attorney document that granted her the power to sell the unit. She subsequently sold the unit on July 2017, earning some HKD3 million.
After being questioned by the PJ, the woman admitted to the crimes, justifying them with reference to the large debt she had been left to pay. As for any remaining money from the sale of the house, she said she had lost it at the casino.
She was presented to the MP on the charges of aggravated fraud and document forgery.
The PJ spokesperson added that the force still has not managed to locate her boyfriend, who was an accomplice to the crimes.

Man damages car out of jealousy
A 34-year-old male from the mainland has been charged with aggravated damage, after he defaced another man’s car in a moment of rage after finding the man at dinner with his wife.
According to the investigation carried out by the PJ after the incident, the police discovered that the man suspected his wife was cheating on him. He revealed during questioning that he had hired a person to spy on his wife, and that they reported to him in the early hours of October 26 that his wife was having dinner with a man at a local restaurant.
Enraged, the husband went to the location. But instead of approaching the table, he went to a car that he knew belonged to the other man, and caused extensive damage to the car’s door and window using a brick.
The PJ’s report says that the damage caused amounted to as much as MOP7,000.
After damaging the car, he turned himself in to the police, telling them the whole story and his motivations.