Police launch winter operation to prevent crime during CNY

The Macau Unitary Police Service (SPU) has announced their Winter Prevention Operation 2018, an operation that aims to bolster crime prevention efforts ahead of the Lunar New Year (CNY) season. CNY is marked every year by an exponential growth of crimes against property.

In a statement, the SPU has announced that this year’s operation started on January 26 and will combine the efforts of both the public security police force (PSP) and the Judiciary Police (PJ).
According to the same statement, the operation is composed of “awareness campaigns and operations to fight crime.”
On the crime fighting part, the authorities clarified that they will be focusing on “vehicle verifications as well as inspection in the casinos and fighting crimes such as illegal immigration and drugs [consumption and trafficking].”

The authorities continued by saying that measures regarding crowd control will be activated to ensure the flow of people and vehicles “at border crossings and on public roads.” This crowd control will be formed by “mobilizing more tourist police officers for the areas of greater movement,” and the authorities hope that adequate crowd control will ensure “a deterrent effect on criminals and increase the capacity of authorities to protect residents and respond to emergencies.”