The Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested a newly employed salesman of a jewellery shop in a casino-hotel resort in Cotai on Wednesday for his alleged involvement of the shop’s illegal currency exchange activities, PJ spokesman Ho Wai Lok said during a special press conference yesterday.
According to Ho, the police discovered that the jewellery shop had been engaging in illegal currency exchange activities since February 2023, and even after the law criminalising illegal currency exchanges came into force in October 2024, the shop continued with its illegal activities.
At the time of yesterday’s press conference, the police, Ho said, were still looking for the jewellery shop’s owner and investigating how much the shop’s illegal currency exchange activities had involved since the law took effect.
The new criminal law on illicit gambling, which came into force in late October 2024, criminalises unauthorised currency exchange activities for gambling purposes. According to the law, known as Law 20/2024, unauthorised currency exchange activities conducted on or in the vicinity of casino premises are regarded as currency exchanges for gambling purposes, which are punishable by a prison term of up to five years.
Ho identified the salesman arrested on Wednesday as a 43-year-old local man surnamed Ho, who had just started to work at the jewellery shop early this month.
According to Ho, the Judiciary Police were tipped off earlier this month about the jewellery shop’s illegal currency exchange activities, after which PJ officers put the shop under surveillance on Wednesday morning.
The PJ officers saw that a male gambler collected cash in HK dollars from the salesman. After the gambler exchanged the cash for chips at the casino cashier, Ho said, the PJ officers intercepted the gambler and then went to the shop to arrest the salesman.
The police found that the gambler collected HK$20,000 in cash from the salesman after transferring 19,200 yuan to the jewellery shop by scanning a QR code provided by the salesman.
Under questioning, Ho said, the suspect told the police that he was hired by the jewellery shop early this month as a salesman for a monthly salary of 13,600 patacas, but he was also told by the owner to engage in currency exchange activities with gamblers.
According to Ho, the police seized HK$1.17 million in cash, gaming chips worth HK$56,000, a tablet computer, and four smartphones from the jewellery shop.
The suspect has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing an illegal currency exchange charge.
HK banknotes, gaming chips, a tablet computer, and four smartphones seized from the jewellery shop are displayed in a pressroom of the Judiciary Police (PJ) headquarters yesterday. – Photo: PJ
