Woman extorts MOP150,000 in repeated sham marriages

A local man has allegedly “rented” out his partner on two occasions to attempt to obtain Macau residency for five mainland residents, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) disclosed yesterday.

The main suspects are Kou, a male, and Chiu, a female. They were previously in a relationship before being arrested. Another suspect, Liang, a former colleague of Kou, was originally a mainland resident but managed to secure Macau residency in 2020 after marrying Chiu in 2006.

In 2011, Liang and Chiu divorced, but not before Chiu gave birth to Kou’s son. In addition, Liang’s real partner, Lai, a woman from the mainland, bore a son to Liang, before the divorce took place.

From this sham marriage, Kou and Chiu secured MOP30,000 in remuneration.

Liang and Lai married in 2012 and subsequently had two children, one in in the same year and one in 2015. Lai obtained her Macau residency in 2021.

In the light of their previous successful con, Kou and Chiu decided to repeat the “rental”, only with a larger price tag.

Last year, Chiu received a sum of 100,000 Chinese yuan from Liu, a mainland man, for another sham marriage. After they married, an application for Liu’s Macau residency, as well as that for two of Liu’s sons by another woman, was filed.

The police disclosed that, according to the suspects, Liu promised Kou and Chiu that if the sham marriage was successful and Liu, as well as his two sons, had secured Macau residencies, Chiu would receive another 100,000 Chinese yuan in payment, boosting the price tag of the sham marriage to 200,000 Chinese yuan.

However, the alleged sham marriage was discovered before the deal was sealed.

As of the time of arrest, according to the PSP, Liu and his two sons had not yet obtained their Macau ID cards, so they had no right of residence in Macau.

Kou, Chiu and Liang have been arrested by the police. Liu, on the other hand, is at large. The PSP is currently searching for Lai and Liu’s two sons.

Unlike many other similar cases, this case was discovered when the PSP initiated general investigations into this type of crime.

In another case, the Judiciary Police (PJ) revealed that a local man had allegedly taken his new friend’s cash, stored in a hotel room safe.

The cash amounted to HKD400,000.

According to the police, the suspect, a local man 26 years old, has been arrested and delivered to the Public Prosecutions Office on a charge of aggravated theft.

The victim is a mainland male resident. When on a trip to Macau mid-April, he became friends with the suspect and thereafter remained in contact using a messaging app.

April 25, the victim returned to Macau and spent some time late at night in a hotel room rented under the name of the suspect. For security reasons, the victim stored his cash in the hotel room safe in front of the suspect.

Five days later, when the victim wanted to retrieve the cash from the safe, he found it gone. His backpack, containing his clothes and travel documents, which was in the room, had also disappeared.

His attempts to contact the suspect were fruitless.

Close to midnight on the night of April 30/May 1, the suspect told the victim he was in a Northern District park. The police were notified right away and the suspect was arrested. He confessed to stealing the cash by pretending to have forgotten the passcode of the safe. He claimed to have lost all the cash, but the backpack was found at his place of residence.