Organized criminals used fake chips to rip off a casino in Macau’s Cotai district. According to Inside Asian Gaming, the group made off with about HK$5.7 million (US$727,000). Local police arrested two Mainland Chinese men and are searching for at least six other conspirators.
The August 21 crime was uncovered when a dealer noticed that 10 HK$10,000 (US$1,275) chips felt unusually rough to the touch. Officials quickly scanned the chips for RFID (radiofrequency ID) tags; when they discovered the chips were untagged, they knew they were counterfeit.
The casino called police, who arrested the two suspects who remained onsite. The men carried more than 200 counterfeit additional chips with a face value of HK$2.4 million (US$306,000). Police eventually found another 112 bogus chips in the trash. A total of 804 fake chips used in the crime resulted in a loss of at least HK$5.7 million to the casino.
