Lost item theft on the rise
Among five cases publicized by the Public Security Police Force (PSP) yesterday, three concerned the appropriation of lost items, with losses reaching MOP125,000.
The PSP disclosed the cases at yesterday’s regular police press conference. Although not all cases occurred recently – with only one case occurring this month – the police have arrested suspects.
At about 10 p.m. on Aug. 8, the PSP was notified of a property loss case at a Cotai hotel. The victim reported losing a handbag with contents equating to a total monetary loss of MOP125,000. She was briefly away from the spot until she realized she had lost the handbag. After returning for a search, she could not find her bag.
Viewing the hotel surveillance camera footage, the police identified two suspects, surnamed Guan and Xiong, 42 and 49, both mainland residents. Police officers located and arrested the suspects the next afternoon on Rua Cidade de Sintra.
Guan admitted to appropriating and “gifting” the handbag to Xiong, while taking a golden ring, a wireless headset and some cosmetics from the bag as hers.
In two other cases, lost property was taken from taxis by subsequent passengers.
In one case, the police were notified of lost properties on Feb. 5 this year. The victim, a mainland man, reported losing his bag on a taxi ride from Cotai to Hengqin on Jan. 25. He reported a loss of MOP29,261.
The police later believed a female suspect, surnamed Liu, in her 40s, and a self-reported businessperson, was involved. Liu was intercepted at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge checkpoint on Aug. 12.
She admitted to conducting the crime and keeping the bag in her home in Sichuan Province.
The next case involved two suspects, both female in their 30’s and reported to be businesspeople from mainland China. They are surnamed Xiong and Du.
The male victim from Hong Kong reported that at about 9 p.m. on May 25, he took a taxi from a Cotai hotel to the Taipa Maritime Terminal and left his phone in the taxi. He reported a loss of HKD9,000.
On Aug. 11, the police arrested the two suspects at the Border Gate checkpoint. They denied the allegations, but the police were confident and pressed charges against them.
Meanwhile, in a case publicized by the Judiciary Police (PJ), a woman swindled MOP2.38 million from a local man in his 20s. The mainland woman, 35 and surnamed Lu, was apprehended while re-entering Macau through Hengqin Border Checkpoint on Aug. 15.
The woman confessed that she had lost all the money to local casinos.
The police were notified of the case on Aug. 1. According to the man, the two met in April 2021 at a local casino. After becoming friends, the woman told the man that she was in possession of a large amount of cryptocurrency. She wanted to cash 60 crypto for USD6 million but could not pay the surcharge, so she asked the man for a loan and promised to pay him HKD3 million as remuneration afterwards. The man thus transferred MOP805,000 to the woman in several instalments.
In late November in the same year, the woman claimed that a mobile app got hacked and so she lost all her crypto. She then claimed that she was helping a friend to process a USD8 million inheritance but needed money for a surcharge. Again, she claimed that the man would get HKD6 million for remuneration if he helped her with the surcharge.
Between November 2021 and February 2022, the man wired MOP1.58 million to the woman, who disappeared in July 2022.
