A man and a woman from the mainland were arrested on Sunday for falsely imprisoning a mainland couple, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Un Hong said during a regular press conference yesterday.
The 39-year-old female suspect surnamed Hu is a teacher. The 37-year-old male suspect surnamed Zhang claimed to be jobless. The two victims are a 38-year-old man surnamed Peng who is a non-resident worker (NRW) working as a kitchen assistant in a barbecue restaurant in Cotai, and his 35-year-old wife surnamed Liu who claimed to be jobless.
According to Cheong, the Judiciary Police received a referral about a false imprisonment case from the Public Security Police (PSP) on Sunday. In November, Hu and Zhang discovered that Peng was working in Macau and earning extra money through illegal currency exchange. They were interested in currency exchange activities. Therefore, Zhang gave Peng 80,000 yuan, while Hu gave Peng 200,000 yuan to invest in currency exchange activities in Macau. In return, Peng promised to pay Zhang 400 yuan and Hu 600 yuan each day.
However, Peng then gambled away all their money and stopped making payments to them at the end of December. On Friday, Zhang and Hu told a woman, who at the time of the press conference was on the run, to go to the barbecue restaurant where Peng was working in Macau to find him, after which the woman took him to a room rented by Hu and Zhang. They took Peng’s ID and forced him to call his wife, Liu, to tell her to meet them in the room. They threatened that if Peng did not repay the money, they would send him to Southeast Asia to work there or harm his two sons. They also forced him to sign an IOU, threatening that he and his wife would not be allowed to leave. Eventually, Peng contacted his coworkers at the barbecue restaurant for help. The police rescued Peng and Liu and arrested Zhang and Hu on Sunday.
Under questioning, Peng told the police that he had made a profit of HK$20,000 from the currency exchange deals.
Hu and Zhang were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing charges of false imprisonment, unlawful retention of a person’s identification documents, and coercion. Additionally, Hu, Zhang, and Peng also face charges of illegal currency exchange activities.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Un Hong looks on during yesterday’s regular press conference. – Photo: Ada Lei
