A 42-year-old man from the neighboring region of Hong Kong was detained by the Judiciary Police (PJ) with the help of immigration officers while attempting to reenter Macau on Wednesday.
The man is being accused of pawning counterfeit luxury watches mimicking the well-known Swiss watch designer and manufacturer Rolex.
The fraud was first discovered when a storekeeper of a local pawnshop, located in the NAPE district, filed a complaint to PJ on February 27 stating that the man had pawned a watch at his shop, receiving HKD50,000, but that later the staff found the watch was a fake.
Upon investigation, the PJ found that the man had already left Macau on this day and so when he returned last Wednesday, he was detained at the immigration checkpoint and taken for questioning.
Although the suspect refused to cooperate with the police and did not reply to any questions from inspectors, the PJ found two other counterfeit watches in his possession. Together with the watches, they also found a list of pawnshops in Macau with some written notes on it.
Based on the list, the PJ later contacted another pawnshop also located in the NAPE, advising them to inspect a watch that the man had apparently also pawned there.
The store workers realized that they had fallen for the same scam and had given the man some HKD60,000 for the fake watch.
So far, the PJ found the two related cases involving a total loss of HKD110,000 but, based on the man’s immigration record and pawnshops list, they suspect there could be more cases worth an even higher amount.
Analysis of the watches by an expert revealed that the timepieces are forgeries of medium quality and should not be worth more than 2,000 to 3,000 patacas each.
The man was presented yesterday to the Public Prosecutions Office to be charged with the crime of fraud of a “considerably high amount.”
