A significant number of scams related to illegal currency exchange have been reported in the past few days, the PJ has announced.
These crimes, which were a feature of previous years, seem to have resurged in the final days of 2021 and the onset of 2022, with five cases reported over the past weekend.
All the cases involved the same modus operandi. The suspects would approach victims in casinos to exchange RMB into HKD for personal gambling. The victims would transfer sums in RMB via a QR code into an account in the mainland, and the suspects (six in total) would hand them a bundle of HKD bank notes. Only a few from the top and bottom of each bundle were real, and the rest of the bundle were forged.
The PJ has detained six suspects and apprehended over 180 forged banknotes with an exchange value of between HKD50,000 and HKD200,000.
The suspects have told the PJ they were hired to conduct these schemes in Macau by an unknown person in Zhuhai. They confessed to receiving a wage of RMB600 per day. RM
