Five local men and a local woman who worked for a clinic and a dried seafood shop were arrested on Monday for using more than 5,000 local ID cards since 2019 to obtain digital health vouchers through fraudulent means, cheating the government out of more than 8.5 million patacas between 2019 and June this year, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei said at a special press conference yesterday.

Another four locals allegedly involved in the fraud case were also arrested on Monday.

The six suspects from the clinic and dried seafood shop are aged between 29 and 69. They comprise three physicians, one of whom is the licence holder of the clinic, as well as the owner of the dried seafood shop and two of the shop’s employees.

According to Lei, the Judiciary Police received a tip-off in January 2021 that a clinic colluded with a dried seafood shop in Areia Preta district to cheat the government.  The clinic owner allegedly paid the ID card holders 30 percent of the 600-pataca vouchers in cash, or offered them a certain quantity of goods from the dried seafood shop.

Lei said that the three of the clinic’s doctors received more than 16,000 transactions from health vouchers between January 1, 2019 and June this year, involving more than 8.5 million patacas. The Judiciary Police checked the digital accounts of the three doctors and found out that one of them was not in Macau most of the time.

PJ officers investigating the case assumed that his account had been used by someone else for inputting fraudulent medical records and transactions using the health vouchers, Lei said. The officers also discovered that another doctor of the clinic had transferred more than 200,000 patacas to the bank account of the person-in-charge of the dried seafood shop. The Judiciary Police summoned several locals who had visited the clinic to report to a police station to assist in the investigation. Some of them admitted to cheating the government by using their health vouchers at the clinic to get either cash or goods from the dried seafood shop in return.

According to Lei, the Judiciary Police took action on Monday and took the three doctors, three employees of the dried seafood store including the person-in-charge and four other local residents to a police station for questioning. The four other suspects admitted that they used their vouchers to get either cash from the clinic or goods from the dried seafood shop.

Five of the 10 suspects – three doctors and two shop employees – were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing fraud and organised crime charges, while the other four suspects are facing fraud charges, according to Lei. 

Five hooded health voucher fraud suspects are escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters in Zape to a vehicle yesterday. Photo: Camy Tam

Evidence seized from the health voucher fraud suspects such as seven smartphones, three Macau ID cards and two passbooks is displayed at the Judiciary Police (PJ) headquarters yesterday.