A woman has been apprehended on allegations over smuggling and money laundering to the value of around MOP140 million, the Judiciary Police (PJ) announced yesterday.
Apart from the woman, 11 other people were also detained for investigations in the case but were not accused of any violations.
The funds were discovered in a variety of forms, the police disclosed, such as casino chips and cash.
The police said the case was uncovered via intelligence and subsequent constant investigations. Relevant information was delivered to the police late last year.
According to the police, the suspect was accused of smuggling the expensive Chinese liquor Moutai and laundering the profits supposedly generated from these activities.
The 48-year-old suspect surnamed Kam is from Macau, and is reportedly a businesswoman.
Attention was drawn towards the suspect when she tried to cash casino chips of denomination HKD1 million at two casinos in Macau and Taipa between August and October this year. The value of the chips totaled HKD140 million.
Some of these chips were successfully cashed, while others were not, the police added.
Investigations have also led the police to believe the suspect had smuggled Moutai liquor on requests of her customers with the support of her own liquor shop. The way in which the liquor was smuggled out of Macau was by parallel trading activities at the Border Gate checkpoint, the police revealed.
At the end of November, the police searched her residence in Taipa, her liquor shop in the NAPE district, her storage in the Northern district and several of her cars. Cash in the pataca, Hong Kong Dollar, Singaporean Dollar and US Dollar, of value equivalent to about MOP20 million, was seized.
Meanwhile, 84 cash chips valued at HKD84 million, about 20,000 bottles of Moutai liquor and some documents were also seized. Each bottle of the liquor is valued at about MOP2,000.
Despite the woman denying the accusation, the police were not convinced by her explanation of the source of the funds. The police said they were told the funds were reportedly investments into the woman’s business from some mainland resident.
After cross-referencing, the police discovered the mainland resident had not entered Macau once in the past few years.
The police, on the other hand, are believed to have discovered links to smuggling of the expensive Chinese liquor and subsequent money laundering. Hence, relevant charges were pressed against the woman.
In another case, a long-lasting business alliance soured because of several dishonored checks.
The male suspect, surnamed Ao and aged 38 years, was manager at an IT company. The victim, whose particulars were undisclosed, is the manager at another IT company.
In May this year, the victim prepaid MOP3.2 million to the suspect as the latter’s share of profits from winning a tender for a project at a local university.
On Sep. 20, Ao’s company received the first instalment of money from the university, about MOP1.16 million. He then delivered a check of this value to the victim as repayment for the prepayment.
Ao was notified by the victim about the dishonored check, before he issued two other checks to the victim, respectively valued at MOP110 and MOP1.115 million.
Once again, both checks were dishonored.
The two unfortunate experiences prompted the victim to report the case to the police. After preliminary investigations, the police intercepted the suspect on Dec. 2.
During questioning, the victim admitted to the deliberate issuance of dishonored checks and said the first instalment funds had been used to settle his company bills.
