Police have arrested a mainland Chinese chef in a multi-million dollar fraud case involving two victims that is the latest in a series of scams that have come to light in Macao in recent weeks.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Lam said that the 44-year-old suspect surnamed Wu is a male non-resident worker (NRW) who works as a chef.
According to Ho, the local female victim met Wu in May last year. Wu persuaded her to invest in a “catering business” in Zhuhai, saying that it was very profitable. Ho said that the victim gave Wu 1.13 million yuan for the “investment”, but no contract was signed.
Wu later asked for more money but the victim refused, complaining there was no “investment protection”, Ho said, adding that Wu had paid her a few thousand yuan as “profit”.
According to Ho, soon after the first investment, Wu asked the victim to invest in a “currency exchange business” in Macao and mainland China. Wu claimed that for every HK$1 million exchanged, the business would yield a HK$20,000 profit and the two would split the profit fifty-fifty.
The victim fell for the high-profit rate and gave HK$1.8 million to Wu as an investment, Ho said, adding that Wu never gave the money back although she demanded it several times. Realising that she might have been scammed, the victim reported both cases to the police on 6 December last year.
Wu’s second victim is a mainland Chinese man who on 23 May reported to the police that Wu had borrowed HK$200,000 from him on 7 February for “currency exchange”. When the male victim asked for the money back, Wu claimed that he had lost it gambling, Ho said, after which Wu severed all contact with the victim.
Wu was apprehended while crossing the Macao-Hengqin checkpoint on Sunday, Ho said. Wu denied the accusations and was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office on Tuesday for a follow-up investigation, facing fraud charges, The Macau Post Daily reported.
