Police officials from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau arrested a total of 19 people on Monday for their alleged involvement in an international ring that produces fake credit cards with stolen personal information from Europe, the Middle East and the US, the Judiciary Police (PJ) said Thursday.
The Judiciary Police (PJ) held a special press conference to announce the case in which two of the 19 suspects were arrested in the Macau, 14 were arrested in Shenzhen and three in Hong Kong. The suspects are from Hong Kong, the mainland and Malaysia.
A PJ spokesperson was quoted by The Macau Post Daily as saying that police departments from Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen received a tip-off about the credit card scam ring in August last year and police from the three places monitored the ring’s activities until they had collected enough evidence to arrest them on Monday.
Since the crime had taken place in three jurisdictions over about a year, the spokesperson said that the respective police departments were still working out how much money had been obtained during the course of the scam.
According to the spokesperson, the quartet picked up in Shenzhen are suspected of being the ringleaders as mainland police found about 2,000 forged credit cards with account information of victims in Europe, the Middle East and the US, which were given to them by the syndicate.
The three Malaysians arrested in Hong Kong were found to be carrying eight counterfeit credit cards and the two Hongkongers arrested in Macau were found to be in possession of luxury wines and make-up products worth about 10,000 patacas.
“They used the fake cards to pay for the goods in Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland and then sold the goods to get the cash,” the spokesperson said, adding that the two Hong Kong people arrested in Macau were in charge of taking the goods to Hong Kong from the “spenders” they hired to use the fake cards to shop.
According to the spokesperson, the Hong Kong citizens are a 37-year-old unemployed woman surnamed Wong and a 50-year-old man surnamed Wong (no relation) who claims he is a construction worker. They both admitted that the goods had been purchased using the bogus credit cards.
The case of the two Hong Kong suspects was passed to the Public Prosecution Office (MP) on Wednesday.(macaunews)
