Primary school students accused of arson

A group of three local primary school students aged 10 and 11 years old were accused of arson, the Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesperson informed yesterday during the joint press conference held at the PJ’s headquarters. The spokesperson said that the boys allegedly set fire to a burger box from a fast food restaurant where they had eaten.

The case occurred on March 1 and was communicated to the PJ by the Fire Services (CB) who noted the arson occurred in front of a store located at the Rua de Francisco Xavier Pereira at the Mong Ha area. CB were alerted to the fire by a passerby who witnessed the three suspects playing with fire.

The man told the PJ that he tried to stop them by shouting at them. After that, they ran in the direction of a fast food restaurant located nearby, in the Avenida de Venceslau de Morais.
The PJ then started to investigate the case and reviewed several surveillance cameras in the area in order to try to identify the suspects.

According to the information provided by the PJ, the case only progressed because one of the suspects was recognized in footage from the next day (March 2) of the surveillance cameras of the Mong Sin Public Housing Building where he lives.

Questioned by the police, the child told his version of events, then revealed the identity of the other two suspects. The three children claim that they were eating in the fast food restaurant. As they were leaving, one of them, who was in possession of a lighter, had the idea of taking a burger box outside and setting fire to it “just for fun.”

Since the minors are reasonably young (10 and 11 years old), they cannot be criminally prosecuted. Thus, the case was forwarded to the Public Security Police Force (PSP) which will proceed to follow up with the childrens’ school.

In a separate case, also reported by the PJ, on March 4, between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., a special operation was undertaken by the police; around 20 inspectors were mobilized with the aim of performing inspection-related activities in the City of Dreams Casino and the casino surroundings.

This raid was designed to target people performing illegal money exchange operations. These con artists have been responsible for many fraud cases and the raid caught a total of 15 people (six males and nine females) red handed. All the detainees are from mainland China, and are aged from 26 to 55 years old.

All the detainees have been accused of performing illegal activities related to currency exchange.

Police motorcycle damaged by ‘unhappy resident’

A resident is being accused of aggravated damage caused to a police motorcycle, the PSP said yesterday.

The case occurred on March 1 in the Va Tai  neighborhood, in the surroundings of the Border Gate, when an officer on duty parked the motorcycle while fining other scooters illegally parked in the area. After finishing the task, which took him about one hour to complete, he noticed that the seat of the police motorcycle had been damaged.

The police investigated the case by reviewing the surveillance cameras in the area and they were able to see the suspect in the footage.
A search found a man that matched the characteristics and clothing seen on camera, and he was questioned by the PSP.

The suspect, a 60-year-old resident, confessed to the crime, claiming that he caused the damage because he was “extremely unhappy” with the fact that the police officer always targets his motorcycle with illegal parking tickets, saying that the tickets had recently cost him a significant amount of money.

In a separate story, the PSP noted a report from the Identification Services Bureau claiming that three people participated in a fake marriage scheme in order to obtain resident authorization in the region.

According to the investigation on the documents received and exchanged with mainland counterparties, a female mainland resident came to Macau in 2004, right after divorcing her mainland husband. Almost immediately, she married a local man. In 2012, the same woman filed a divorce from her Macau husband, and less than one month after this, she remarried her first husband from the mainland.

She then filed a request with the Macau government for a residency authorization for her first (and now current) husband.

Due to the facts, the police believe that is strong evidence that the three people are involved in an illegal scheme to seek residency in Macau by fake marriage.

All three suspects are aged around 50 years old and are either unemployed or retired.