GGRAsia – Macau, mainland bust gambler-targeted money scam ring ggrasia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ggrasia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Macau’s Judiciary Police announced on Thursday that they had broken up a scam ring allegedly specialising in the use of ‘bank-teller training notes’ (pictured) in order to cheat gamblers in the city. The crackdown, which started in late March, was a joint operation with mainland China security units, the Judiciary Police told the local media.
The scam ring – which was headquartered in mainland China – was believed to have gained over MOP10 million (US$1.25 million) in illegal proceeds from 73 scam cases previously detected in Macau, said Sou Sio Keong, director of the gaming-related and economic crimes investigation department at Judiciary Police.
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Macau’s Judiciary Police announced on Tuesday that the force had helped, with mainland authorities, to break up an alleged rogue point-of-sale (POS) machine operation in Macau thought to have generated transactions worth CNY11.62 billion (US$1.8 billion) since 2016, with CNY69 million of that going to the gang.
Criminals from both sides of the border were thought to have been using handheld bank card payment terminals meant for the mainland, but which had been modified without authorisation, allegedly for use in a number of Macau shops.
The scam was said to have been in existence as far back as 2016, and was designed to help gamblers get cross-border access to cash, in defiance of mainland China’s currency-control rules, one police spokesperson confirmed to GGRAsia.
Macau’s Judiciary Police say they arrested on Thursday a number of people allegedly involved in developing and operating illicit online gambling websites, a setup said to include the use of several servers hosted locally at a data centre rented from a Macau telecommunications firm.
The ring’s Macau efforts had allegedly been conducted under the front of an “advertising and design company”, with profits from the online gambling thought to have been at least MOP100 million (US$12.5 million) up to Thursday.
That is according to a Friday briefing to local media. Thursday’s police operation resulted in the arrest of two Macau ID holders and two people from mainland China, and the seizing – for crime investigation purposes – of potential evidence from five offices in the city’s ZAPE district, as well as from three flats in Taipa.