Five local suspects, including a civil servant, were arrested on Friday for letting a gang use their bank accounts to receive, conceal and transfer fraudulent funds for two years totalling 380,000 patacas, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lai Chio Hong said at a special press conference on Saturday.

The quintet comprise four men and a woman – a 56-year-old businessman surnamed Sitou, a 37-year-old man surnamed Wong who told the police that he works as an air-con technician, a 33-year-old man surnamed Sou who told the police that he is a civil servant, a 30-year-old jobless man surnamed Tang and a 28-year-old woman surnamed Ho who told the police that she works as a clerk.

According to Lai, the police in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau carried out a joint cross-border operation on Friday morning and arrested nine suspects – a Hong Kong man who was arrested in Foshan city in Guangdong province, three suspects in Hong Kong, and the five suspects in Macau, involving fraudulently obtained funds totalling 540,000 patacas.

The police believe that many local and Hong Kong residents were defrauded by the gang, urging them to contact the police.

According to Lai, in the wake of a raft of recent online fraud cases involving currency exchange operations, PJ officers discovered that 25 similar fraud cases had been reported in Macau since 2018, comprising 27 victims and a total loss of approximately 380,000 patacas.

All the victims told PJ officers that they came across currency exchange services offering favourable yuan and new Taiwan dollar (NT$) rates through social media, online discussion groups, and a Hong Kong website.

However, after the victims had made their respective payments to a designated bank account, they were unable to receive the currency that they had bought and later lost contact with the service provider.

Lai said PJ officers discovered that the 25 currency exchange fraud cases involved a gang in the mainland. A Hong Kong man in Foshan, was identified as the gang’s kingpin. Hence Guangdong’s Public Security Bureau took action in conjunction with the Judiciary Police and the police forces in Foshan and Hong Kong in a joint operation on Thursday morning. In the cross-border operation, the alleged Hong Kong kingpin surnamed Wu was arrested in Foshan, while the five local suspects caught in Macau’s northern and central districts. The Hong Kong police also arrested three suspects allegedly involved in 21 similar fraud cases totalling HK$160,000 in Hong Kong. The police in the three jurisdictions contacted their respective local network providers and shut down the fraudulent website, while a number of servers were confiscated, according to Lai.

Lai said evidence shows that the intermediary companies or individual intermediaries who assisted the gang in handling the transfers, including the five local suspects, were aware of the fact that their activities were illegal but still provided the currency exchange service for the gang so that they are suspected of collecting, concealing and transferring criminal funds.

The five local suspects were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office on Saturday, facing charges of money laundering, according to Lai.

Evidence seized from the suspects such as passbooks, Hong Kong dollar notes and five smartphones are displayed during Saturday’s special press conference.

The hooded money laundering suspects are escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers from the PJ headquarters in Zape to a vehicle on Saturday. Courtesy TDM