In the first nine months of the year the police recorded 10,559 suspected crimes, a year-on-year decline of 1.8 percent, Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak announced Tuesday.
Wong also said that the number of suspected violent crime cases significantly fell 23.9 percent to 452 in the nine-month period. Macau’s top security official revealed the figures during a press conference at the S. Francisco Barracks about the January-September crime statistics.
Wong said that the number of reported fraud cases increased 24.1 percent to 871 during the nine-month period.
Wong pointed out that the number of reported telephone fraud cases decreased from 120 in the first nine months of last year to 98 in the same period this year.
Wong said that the decrease in the number of reported telephone fraud cases was primarily due to a large decline in the cases in which the fraudsters pretended to be officials and public administrators in the mainland.
Wong also said that the police investigated 4,600 cases involving suspected regulatory breaches by taxi drivers, an increase of 21.7 percent. Some 61.7 percent of the cases concerned overcharging, while 22 percent were about refusing to pick up passengers. The police also recorded 138 cases of illegal passenger transport services by private cars, a decline of 88.1 percent from the 1,158 cases in the same period last year.
Wong also revealed that the police investigated 1,338 suspected gaming-related crimes between January and September, an increase of 1.1 percent year on year, among them 390 suspected casino loan-sharking cases, a year-on-year increase of 24.2 percent.
According to Wong, the police also investigated 218 suspected cases of false imprisonment involving loan sharks, a year-on-year decrease of 34.7 percent. Gamblers defaulting on their instant gambling debts are sometimes falsely imprisoned by loan sharks to put pressure on the victims’ family and friends to pay up.
Wong pointed out that among the 36 arson cases recorded between January and September, 25 cases have been solved. Wong stressed that none of the arson cases so far this year had triad connections or links with the gaming industry.
According to Wong, among the 25 solved arson cases, 11 were due to lit cigarette ends people had dropped, while four were caused by children playing with fire.
