The number of criminal cases in Macao last year totalled 14,298, up by 6 percent in comparison to 2023, and 0.8 percent against the figure from pre-pandemic 2019.
At a press conference yesterday, Wong Sio Chak, the secretary for security, said Macao’s social order remained “stable,” noting that multiple categories of crimes, including those dealing with serious violence, drugs, gambling, robbery and theft, all witnessed a drop in comparison to their pre-pandemic 2019 numbers.
Addressing the increase in overall rate, the secretary explained that it was largely a result of the continued surge in the number of scam and cybercrimes cases. Many of these included investment and ticket scams, fraudulent government phone calls scams, as well as sextortion.
Internet scam cases, for instance, increased by 5 percent from 2023 to 2024, hitting a total of 932 last year. In comparison to 2019, 2024 saw 618 more cases in this category, representing a monumental jump of nearly 197 percent.
Computer fraud had a total of 777 cases, with 689 of them related to online credit card transactions.
[See more: Macao’s overall crime rate remained stable in 2024]
Meanwhile telecommunication scam cases dropped by around 14 percent between 2023 and 2024, from 412 cases to 355 cases. However, when compared to 2019’s 235 cases, the number of telephone scams grew by 51 percent.
Regarding gambling-related crimes, Wong stated there were 1,456 cases in 2024, up by around 31 percent against 2023, but down by roughly 32 percent in comparison to 2019.
On the sub-categories of gambling crimes, Wong said that casino fraud cases were the most prevalent, with 333 cases, representing 22.9 percent of the total number of gambling infringements. This was followed by high-interest loans and casino-related illegal currency exchange, whose totals were 252 cases (17.3 percent) and 89 cases (6.1 percent) respectively.
Violent crimes witnessed a growth of 7.4 percent last year, although local media reports noted that there were substantial drops in certain categories, such as homicide, which fell by 75 percent, and child sexual abuse, which plummetted by almost 39 percent.
In terms of combating crime, Wong made mention of the installation of an additional 680 surveillance cameras by 2027, as part of the government’s wider effort to enhance crime detection. Last year, the city’s CCTV camera assisted police with 9,724 cases.
