Police in Macau and China bust ring that scammed gamblers
Macau’s Judiciary Police joined forces with mainland Chinese security units to dismantle a ring specialising in the use of bank-teller training notes to cheat gamblers in the city.
Macau.- A total of 103 people have been arrested in Macau after a joint operation between the city’s Judiciary Police and mainland Chinese security units.
Police said that those arrested are suspected of taking part in a scam that used bank-teller training notes to cheat gamblers who sought to exchange Chinese yuan into Hong Kong dollars in or around Macau casinos
73 cases of the scam were detected in Macau, with MOP10m (US$1.25m) reported to have been lost to the ring.
Sou Sio Keong, director of the gaming-related and economic crimes investigation department at Judiciary Police, said: “Bank-teller training notes are commonly used by mainland China banks in training their tellers.”
He added: “Judiciary Police had seen a sharp rise in the number of such cases in Macau between October and March”.
Sou Sio Keong was appointed as the new director of the Gaming-related and Economic Crimes Investigation Department in March.
He previously worked as a criminal investigator, sub-inspector and inspector. Between 2009 and January 2021, he headed the Judiciary Police Online Crimes Investigation Unit.
Macau recognised for its anti-money laundering controls
The US Department of State’s 2021 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) has recently noted that the Macau government has made great strides in its anti-money laundering controls.
The report indicates that “in 2019, Macau prosecuted over 20 per cent of filed anti-money laundering cases (10 out of 48), a significant improvement from its historical prosecutorial rate of one to five per cent.”
