Driver causes panic under influence of drugs

A local 32-year-old resident caused panic among several citizens on Saturday evening when he ran into a traffic light and road barrier while driving under the influence of drugs. He was apprehended by the police, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) spokesperson informed yesterday at a press conference held at the Judiciary Police (PJ) headquarters.

According to the report, the police were alerted to his behavior by at least two different phone calls from citizens, in which they described their eyewitness accounts of the suspect’s reckless driving. The first call was received around 10 p.m. and the witness provided the vehicle’s license plate, saying that it had hit a traffic light on the crossroads between Avenida de Horta e Costa and Avenida do Almirante Lacerda in Macau’s central district. The witness also noted that the driver did not stop after running into the traffic light. Approximately 10 minutes later a second phone call was logged in which a second witness claimed to have seen the same car crashing against the road separator barriers near Ponte 16 in the inner harbor area.

The PSP then initiated a manhunt for the driver, finally finding the suspect sleeping inside the vehicle around 2 a.m. on January 21.

The driver was then taken to the public hospital and a blood test for alcohol was performed. While the results for blood alcohol count came back negative, a subsequent drug test revealed that the driver had a methamphetamine known as “ice” in his system.

Upon being questioned, the man said to the police that on January 19 he was in mainland China where he consumed a pill given to him by a friend in a bar. He claimed that he did not know what the pill contained.

He further said that he returned to Macau on January 20 by the Border Gate checkpoint around 9:30 p.m.

He has been accused by the police of driving under the influence of drugs and fleeing the scenes of the accidents.

In a separate story reported by the PJ, another resident, aged 25, is facing charges over a scam in currency exchange in a case that occurred on December 13 of last year.

The man from Macau has been accused by a mainland resident, aged 24, of scamming him in an exchange of RMB into HKD.

The Macau resident had allegedly received the amount of RMB51,452 in two separate transfers from the mainland resident and he should have given his victim HKD60,000 in exchange.

The accused said he needed to withdraw the money from the ATM. The mainland resident followed him to an ATM location but the on the way the accused claimed he needed to retrieve his mobile phone charger from a parked vehicle. The accused took this opportunity to flee in the car.

The suspect has now been located and taken into custody by the police to respond to the accusations.

Government runs ‘Wolf Hunting’ casino emergency drill

A casino emergency drill involving several government authorities and departments as well as security forces was held in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The drill was based on a scenario of an armed robbery inside a casino and sought to test the response capabilities of public departments and casino security in handling injuries, hostage taking, and situations involving explosive devices. Additional goals were to optimize the communication and coordination mechanisms and respective contingency measures, a statement from the Government Information Bureau (GCS) informed.

The Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) also added in another statement that the drill had run according to the plan and had strengthened the cooperation between all the entities involved.
The drill, code-named “Wolf Hunting,” took place in a casino property located in Cotai and it was the first ever large-scale, joint contingency drill involving a casino.

The exercise lasted around two hours and involved approximately 350 people, including staff from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau; the Unitary Police Service; the Public Security Police Force; the Judiciary Police; the Fire Service Bureau; and other public departments.

The hypothetical scenario which they created was one in which a group of four people robbed a passer-by and harmed two other people when they were intercepted by casino security officers. The robbers later held a hostage in one of the VIP rooms of the casino and claimed to be in possession of an explosive device.

The drill is part of new measures, first enforced by the DICJ in 2017, that introduced a review of the surveillance procedures at casinos in the wake of the two major incidents that occurred in Manila, Philippines and Las Vegas, USA. RM