The police have busted a loan sharking group that was specifically targeting casino workers, mainly dealers. Ten suspects have been arrested so far. The police say the group has been running for no less than five years and there have been at least 120 victims. The amount of money involved in the case is around MOP4 million (US$500,000).
The leader of the group is a female Macau resident, surnamed Ng, who claimed to be unemployed. The other five males and four females are from Macau and Mainland China, aged between 20 and 50, who also claimed to be unemployed, or working as dealers or construction workers.
The police say the group allocated jobs in a very organized way, with some in charge of looking for customers, some in charge of receiving the clients and some accompanying the customers to gamble.
The loan sharks would keep the employee cards of the clients and if the clients couldnt repay their debt, they would go to the gambling tables that they were working at to cause disturbances. The ten individuals arrested are suspected of committing organized crime, loan sharking, illegally acquiring documents, forgery and other crimes. The case has been handed over to the Public Prosecutors Office.
Target casino workers
The police said that they received a tip-off in February of this year that a loan sharking group, consisting of both Macau residents and individuals from Mainland China, had been targeting local casino workers, especially dealers.
After some preliminary investigations, the police found that the group had been operating since 2011 and had locked down on several targets.
The members took on different tasks, such as looking for targets, taking care of clients, accounting and chasing up debts.
The group would keep the debtors employee card, bank-book and ID card.
Initially the loan sharks charged ten per cent of the loan as interest.
They would then accompany the debtor to gamble. Regardless of the result, a further ten per cent of the bet was charged as interest. If the debtor was not able to repay the loan, every ten days an additional ten per cent interest was added to the amount.
The debt could be repaid in cash or through a back transfer. If the debtor failed to provide payment, the group would arrange for at least four people to go to the gambling table that the debtor was working at to ask for the debt.
The police said that after gathering all the information, on June 29, around 50 officers were dispatched to the Central District, Northern District and residential units in Taipa to arrest the ten suspects.
Among the evidence confiscated were computers, bankcards, booklets, debtors ID cards, and other materials.
The police identified at least 120 debtors and the amount involved has been estimated to be at around MOP4 million. The police say most of the debtors are casino workers and they have successfully contacted 24 of them so far.
The case is still under investigation and the police say that they are not ruling out the possibility that more individuals will be apprehended.
| Casino-related crime on the rise Data released by the Secretariat for Security shows that in the first three months of the year, the number of illegal detainment cases amounted to 89, a 33 per cent increase compared to the same period last year. Loan sharking cases totaled 106 in the first quarter, a 56 per cent increase year-on-year. The police said that the majority of the victims and suspects were not Macau residents. The reason for the increase in the number of crime cases was mainly due to the efforts by police in tackling these types of crimes, and the initiative on their behalf to investigate and open cases. The police said that most of these crimes took place in casinos, and stressed that these two types of cases have not created any impact on overall public security. The police added that they have not yet seen any irregular behavior of triads caused by the current adjustment period of the local gaming industry, and also stated that declining gaming revenues have not caused any impact on local security. |
