Chau was charged with 289 counts of fraud, cash laundering and unlawful playing over his on line casino ‘junket’ operation.
Alvin Chau, the person as soon as often known as Macau’s on line casino “junket king”, has been sentenced to 18 years in jail for working an unlawful playing empire, ending a felony trial that shocked the on line casino hub and toppled one in every of its highest-profile gaming tycoons.
Chau, the 48-year-old founding father of Suncity Group, pioneered the junket trade that introduced excessive rollers from mainland China — the place advertising and marketing or soliciting playing is illegitimate — to gamble in Macau, the one place within the nation the place casinos function legally. The junket operators additionally prolonged credit score to rich mainland gamblers and picked up their debt on behalf of casinos.
Prosecutors had charged Chau with 289 counts of fraud, cash laundering and unlawful playing.
Decide Lou Ieng Ha on Wednesday discovered Chau responsible of fraud, working a felony syndicate and working unlawful bets, however acquitted him on the cash laundering cost.
Suncity below Chau’s management had “performed unlawful playing for illegal positive aspects for a very long time”, the choose stated in her ruling.
The trial, which started in September, centred on alleged under-the-table bets price 824 billion Hong Kong dollars ($105bn) over eight years, which defrauded Macau of tax income exceeding 1 billion Hong Kong dollars ($128m).
At its peak throughout the 2010s, junkets contributed the majority of gaming income for the previous Portuguese colony, which boasted a pre-pandemic on line casino trade greater than Las Vegas.
Chau, charged alongside 20 codefendants, was additionally accused of facilitating proxy betting for Chinese language prospects to gamble remotely in casinos based mostly in Southeast Asia.
The defence acknowledged that under-the-table betting existed in Macau however pointed to the shortage of direct proof implicating Chau, Suncity executives or workers.
Chau’s downfall coincided with Chinese language President Xi Jinping’s years-long anti-corruption drive, which has included a lot nearer scrutiny of corrupt officers who would possibly journey to Macau to position bets and launder cash.
‘The junket mannequin’
Addressing the courtroom in December, Chau stated his firm had by no means run into authorized hassle in additional than a decade of working VIP rooms in casinos worldwide.
“I don’t know why [Suncity] is deemed a felony syndicate,” Chau stated, in response to native media.
“My colleagues haven't seen a cent of felony proceeds up till now … We've got by no means paid further compensation for unlawful acts.”
Chau’s authorized woes started in November 2021 when authorities within the mainland metropolis of Wenzhou issued a warrant for his arrest for working an unlawful playing syndicate. Macau authorities then arrested him and different senior firm executives two days later however selected to cost them domestically, citing a concurrent investigation based mostly within the metropolis.
Macau has a separate authorized system from the Chinese language mainland, largely based mostly on Portuguese regulation. In September, a courtroom in Wenzhou convicted 36 individuals associated to Chau and Suncity based mostly on allegations that partly overlapped with the Macau case.
After the arrests, Suncity shut down all its VIP rooms and quite a few on line casino operators adopted swimsuit, some additionally citing COVID-related enterprise pressures.
The closures signalled a shift in Macau’s gaming trade as the federal government strengthened its regulatory muscle with Beijing’s backing, which took the type of a authorized modification final June.
One other high-profile junket boss Levo Chan Weng Lin, Chau’s onetime rival, can be being prosecuted individually for fraud, cash laundering and working a felony syndicate.
“The junket mannequin was one of many prime movers for cash laundering for so long as it was distinguished,” gaming advisor David Inexperienced informed the AFP information company.
“The casinos themselves can’t afford to take the chance of being held collectively liable with the junkets for his or her misdemeanours.”
On line casino operators Wynn Macau, SJM Holdings, MGM China, Sands China and Galaxy Leisure Group have requested the courtroom to award damages for income losses attributed to Suncity.
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