The Judiciary Police (PJ), in collaboration with the Macau Customs Service (SA), the Public Security Police (PSP) and the mainland’s Public Security Bureau (PSB), have busted a people-smuggling gang, in which PJ officers arrested a 56-year-old local man surnamed Si at his home in Taipa on Friday, while PSB officers in Zhuhai and Guangzhou nabbed four mainland men aged between 20 and 40, including a suspected kingpin of the gang, PJ spokeswoman Lei Hon Nei said during a special press conference on Saturday.

In addition, four illegal immigrants aged between 20 and 40 – three males and a female – were caught in Macau, Lei said, adding that two of them had been banned from entering the city for four years in 2021 and last year respectively for overstaying their visas. The mainland quartet admitted paying the gang between 10,000 and 25,000 yuan for assisting them in entering Macau illegally.

According to Lei, the Judiciary Police were notified by the Customs Service on May 20 that two suspected members of a criminal gang had used a speedboat to smuggle four illegal immigrants from the mainland into Macau earlier that day, in which customs officers intercepted two of the illegal immigrants who had just landed at the Coloane waterfront in Hac Sa Long Chao Kok, while the two other illegal immigrants and two skippers, surnamed Li and He, managed to evade capture.

Following up on the investigation, PJ officers found that a mainland man in his forties surnamed Yang who acted as the gang’s driver in the case had transported the members of the quartet two at a time to a hotel in Cotai and the Macau Stadium in Taipa respectively, Lei noted.

After dropping everybody off, Yang was intercepted near a Nam Kwong Service Station in Taipa, but fled the scene at high speed and crashed into a customs vehicle, causing injuries to a customs officer, Lei said, adding that Yang, who had escaped the scene, parked his car in a hotel carpark in Cotai and then fled to the mainland via the Hengqin border checkpoint.

From May 20 to last Monday, Si, who took over as the gang’s driver, assisted Li and He to hide in different hotels on three occasions, until the morning of May 22, when they left Macau illegally, according to Lei, who added that under questioning, Si admitted that he had been paid by the gang to assist its members in evading police and buying daily necessities, but he declined to disclose the amount of the payment that he received.

The other two illegal immigrants were arrested by the Public Security Police at a hotel in Cotai on May 20.

Si was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Saturday, facing charges of organised crime and aiding and abetting illegal immigration, Lei noted.

Lei said that the police were continuing their investigation at the time of the press conference. 

This undated handout photo provided by the Judiciary Police (PJ) during Saturday’s special press conference at the PJ headquarters in Zape shows a PJ officer collecting evidence from a people-smuggling speedboat.