The Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested 25 suspects from Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland for money laundering, fraud and document forgery on Thursday, PJ spokesman Leng Kam Lon said during a special press conference on Friday.
Leng said that the gang comprised two Hong Kong suspects and 23 from the Chinese mainland, aged between 22 and 62.
He added that the mainland’s Public Security Bureau (PSB) also arrested 40 suspected members of the gang across multiple provinces and cities.
According to Chan Cho Man, head of the PJ’s Criminal Investigation Department, the investigation revealed that since January last year, the gang had been approaching gamblers near hotels in Zape and Cotai, offering “legal” and “favourable” currency exchange services.
The gang gained the victims’ trust by forging screenshots of mainland IDs to create the illusion that transfers were being made directly from legitimate accounts, Chan said.
He added that some gamblers subsequently had their bank accounts frozen within days because the funds were linked to proceeds of fraud. Upon returning to the mainland, these victims were then listed as criminal suspects themselves.
According to Chan, a total of 12 victims lost 3.59 million yuan (4.24 million patacas), with the funds connected to telecom and investment fraud cases across eight mainland Chinese provinces and cities.
Chan noted that the gang used virtual currencies to transfer the illicit proceeds, involving at least HK$45.6 million (47.0 million patacas) in money laundering and generating illegal profits of approximately HK$2.5 million.
The Judiciary Police conducted targeted investigations into these cases and collaborated with the Public Security Bureau, leading to the identification of a cross-border gang operating in Macau and the Chinese mainland.
On Thursday, PJ officers arrested the 25 suspects in the peninsula, in three hotel guestrooms in Cotai and at various border checkpoints. They also seized HK$5.7 million in cash and a batch of equipment used to forge documents, including printers, anti-counterfeit labels and a card shredder.
Chan said that PSB officers arrested a further nine suspects across several provinces and cities in the Chinese mainland, including three alleged kingpins. In addition, the PSB dismantled 11 underground banks in Zhuhai linked to the money laundering network, resulting in the arrest of another 31 suspects.
The 25 suspects arrested by the PJ were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, each facing charges of money laundering, fraud, and document forgery.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the 25 hooded fraud, money-laundering and document-forgery suspects to PJ vehicles outside the PJ headquarters in Zape on Friday. – Photo: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
