The Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested three male mainlanders on Saturday for cheating a male money changer out of about 500,000 yuan by providing fake Hong Kong dollar notes with a bogus face value of about HK$600,000 earlier this month, PJ spokesman Leng Kam Lon said during a special press conference on Monday.
According to Leng, all the three suspects are aged around 30, surnamed Wang, Zhang and Zheng respectively. The victim in his twenties told the police that he is a businessman from the mainland who is running an – illegal – currency-exchange business in local casinos.
On April 12, the victim struck a deal with the three suspects in a casino in Cotai, according to which he was to transfer 519,000 yuan to the three suspects, while the trio was to hand HK$600,000 in cash to the victim in return. The victim transferred the 519,000 yuan to a bank account on the mainland, according to Leng.
The trio then handed the victim a bag, which contained a quantity of Hong Kong dollar notes, all with a face value of HK$1,000 and then left, according to Leng.
After checking, the victim found that only a few of the banknotes were genuine and so he reported the case to the police.
After further checking, the police confirmed that only 12 of the banknotes were genuine and 597 notes were duds.
The police confirmed that the three suspects left Macau later that day. They were arrested on Saturday when they were re-entering Macau at a border checkpoint.
