Local resident scammed over investments in US real estate

A local teacher, aged 45, was involved in a case over alleged investments in U.S. Real Estate. The resident claims to have lost a total of USD60,000 (around MOP480,000), according to a statement from the Judiciary Police (PJ) given yesterday at a press conference held at the Public Security Police Force (PSP) headquarters.

The case goes back to August 2014, when the teacher saw a website promoting investment in real estate in U.S.

He contacted the company by email to register his interest and received a reply stating the conditions and highlighting the “high return investment rate.”

In September 2014, he finally decided to invest after thinking about the opportunity. He invested through two money transfers to two different accounts abroad and the total transaction amount was approximately USD60,000.

From that moment, the victim claims to have lost contact with the company and to have never received any interest regarding the investment.

He kept trying to reach the company for almost two years until July this year, when he finally gave up and suspected that he had been scammed.

He decided to present a formal complaint on Friday, December 2.

For the time being there is no more information on the case, which is still under investigation.

In a separate case, a man, aged 48, from mainland China also claims to have been drawn into a scam, along with two other people. The scam involved HKD1.6 million.

The victim claims to have met a couple in a Macau casino about two years ago, who convinced him to open an account in a VIP Club in order to exchange gaming chips for cash.

At that time, he also said they convinced him to delegate powers to the two to do such actions at any time.

According to the PJ report, the woman allegedly called the victim on April 29, 2015 asking him to come to Macau to play, which he did.

On the next day, the same woman offered to help him to cash out a total of HKD1.6 million in chips.

Later on the same day, the case started to unfold in an unusual way with the male suspect heading to the PJ to present a complaint against the woman over illegal cash withdrawals using credit cards.

After investigating, the PJ concluded that the complaint against the woman had served as a red herring to justify to the victim that he could not receive his money because the woman (who allegedly was in possession of his money) had been arrested and the money had been confiscated in the process.

In fact, when the PJ arrested the woman she had only the amount of HKD4,000 in her possession, claiming not to be aware of the whereabouts of the remaining sum.

According to the PJ, the male suspect was intercepted on Thursday (December 1) while crossing the border at the Border Gate Cross-point.

He was presented to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on the accusation of fraud.

It is not clear at the moment if the woman will face any charges as the police are still investigating her relation to the case.