Police have arrested a self-styled Chinese gambling guru in Macao as part of an investigation into alleged fraud and embezzlement.
Detectives did not reveal the suspect’s name but said he is male, 31 years old, and hails from Mainland China, the Macao-based media outlet TDM reported.
Officers say the man defrauded a middle-aged woman to the tune of approximately 255,000 patacas (almost $32,000) under the pretense of teaching her gambling skills.
Police said the gambling guru met the woman in November last year and arranged to gamble in Macao a few days later.
Prior to their gambling session, the man “repeatedly showed the victim” a WeChat Pay e-payment account with 1.8 million yuan (over $260,400) in credit, police said. This led the woman to trust the man’s claims to possess extraordinary gambling skills.
Once in Macao, they met near the Hengqin Port border crossing, where they allegedly visited two nearby casinos.
Chinese Gambling Guru Arrested at Border Checkpoint
The man, officers said, borrowed money from the victim twice “under the pretext of teaching her gambling skills.”
However, his claims to be a gifted gambler were quickly exposed, police explained, as he “lost most of the money he had borrowed.”
Police said the man claimed he could not repay the woman immediately due to the e-pay platform’s peer-to-peer transfer limits.
Shortly after, the man disappeared from the woman’s view and attempted to cross back into the mainland. Police stated they arrested the man at a border crossing point on March 24.
Detectives took the man in for questioning, during which an investigation revealed that his claims of having over $260,000 in his accounts were false.
In fact, the man “did not have enough money to repay” the funds he had borrowed from the alleged victim, police concluded.
Crackdown Continues
Police in Macao continue to crack down on gambling-related crime. On March 30, Judiciary Police said they had arrested a 32-year-old Mainland Chinese resident at Macao International Airport.
Detectives have accused the man and a suspected accomplice of duping an illegal female currency exchange operator out of over $2,760 worth of casino chips.
Police say they will also charge the alleged victim, whom they accuse of belonging to an illegal currency exchange network.
Officers say off-the-books currency exchange is rife in areas near Macao casinos.
In January, the Public Security Police Department arrested a man suspected of exchanging thousands of US dollars worth of Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese money on a street near popular casinos.
