The Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested a Hong Kong man on Monday for stealing two luxury watches valued at 3.78 million yuan (4.25 million patacas) from a mainland woman, PJ spokesman Cheong Un Hong said during a special press conference yesterday.
Cheong identified the suspect as a 58-year-old male surnamed Chung who claimed to be jobless.
According to Cheong, the police received a report on May 31 from the mainland woman, who operates a luxury watch trading business. She told the police that the two luxury watches were stolen from a safe in an empty shop in a shopping mall located in the city centre that same day.
Cheong noted that at Chung’s request, the woman brought the two watches to Macau on 31 May to meet with a man who wanted to purchase them, who was still at large at the time of the press conference. After meeting the man, the victim was taken to the shopping mall for the transaction.
Cheong said that the man requested the victim to temporarily store the watches in a locked safe in an empty shop, citing safety concerns and claiming that the transaction would be completed shortly. The victim agreed to store the watches after the man had shown her a bag of “cash containing Hong Kong dollars” that he intended to use for the purchase. Afterwards, the victim accepted the man’s invitation to step outside the mall for a smoke.
After smoking, the man excused himself to go to the toilet and asked the victim to wait outside the shop. However, the man never returned. When the victim went back to the shop to check, she found that the watches had been stolen from the safe and immediately reported the case to the police.
Cheong added that after the suspect met up with Chung, they both left Macau via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao checkpoint. The police intercepted Chung on Monday when he was re-entering Macau through the same checkpoint.
The police identified Chung as a co-conspirator of the man. They discovered that while the victim was away from the shop, Chung entered through the back door of the mall, opened the safe, took the watches, and then escaped. Meanwhile, the man who had pretended to go to the toilet, collected a bag, and fled the mall, discarding the bag at a nearby rubbish station. The police later recovered the bag, which contained 3,998 counterfeit “practice vouchers,” each valued at HK$1,000, confirming it as the “cash” the suspect had previously shown to the victim.
Under questioning, Chung refused to cooperate.
Chung was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing a theft charge.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the hooded theft suspect to a PJ van outside the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Ada Lei
