Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak (second from right)
Crimes involving some form of violence have recorded a significant increase in Macau over the past nine months. This comes after the presentation of the criminality report for the first three quarters of 2019.
The report presented by the Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak, yesterday morning noted that crimes such as rape have surged by 68.4% from January to September, totaling 32 cases.
Following the same trend were crimes such as kidnapping and unlawful detention, which are often related to gambling debts to loan sharks. In the same period, they registered an increase of 19.8% to a total of 278 cases, as reported by the police forces.
In the first nine months of this year, a total of 523 cases of violent crime were registered, an increase of 16.2% when compared with the same period last year.
The Secretary, as on other occasions, downplayed the results, saying that although these types of crimes continue to increase, the “most serious ones” that make an attempt on the life of citizens, such as homicide or aggravated bodily harm, continue to register a very low occurrence.
Among the crimes against property, which grew in number by 21.6%, were scams that totaled 1,059 cases and topped the list of crimes against personal property. The figure accounts for the occurrence of an average of about four cases of scams per day during the first nine months.
Crimes of theft and appropriation crimes bucked the trend, decreasing by 4.1% and 9.6% respectively.
Illegal immigration
on the rise
Also rising significantly over the past nine months was the number of cases related to illegal immigration, which recorded an increase of over 25%, and registered a total of 751 cases.
Of this figure, a large majority (658) of the cases involved people from mainland China, with the remaining 93 people arriving from a range of different countries and regions.
In the same period, 308 people were found to be in an illegal situation due to over-staying in the region, a high number that nevertheless represents a slight reduction when compared with last year’s 345 cases, representing a decrease of 1.7%.
Dropping significantly was the number of infractions committed by taxi drivers. The drop of 35% year-on-year was related to the enforcement in June this year of the new taxi law that, according to Wong, is producing “noticeable effects.”
The Secretary highlighted that between June and September, the Public Security Police Force registered a total of 322 cases of infringements, a figure that represents a significant decrease when compared with the same period of last year, when there were 527 cases recorded.
Nevertheless, the number of cases for the first three quarters totaled almost 3,000, of which 1,894 refer to overcharging, 614 to refusal to provide transportation to passengers, and 99 to the provision of an illegal transportation service.
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