Macau police question junket mogul Chau after China city issues warrant (updated)

LET group

27/11/2021 06:54

(Recasts with Macau government statement)
    By Clare Jim
    HONG KONG, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Macau said police were
questioning Alvin Chau on Saturday, after a Chinese city issued
an arrest warrant for the junket mogul, accusing him of
operating gambling activities in mainland China.
    The Macau government said in a statement that Chau, founder
of the special administrative region's biggest junket operator
Suncity, was taken to the police station in the morning, based
on earlier evidence and after it received a notification about
the arrest warrant from the mainland authorities. 
    Suncity operates VIP gambling rooms across Asia. Junket
operators are go-betweens who bring high rollers to play at
casinos, extending them credit and collecting on their debts.
    Casino gambling is illegal in China outside Macau, the
world's largest gambling hub.
    Authorities in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou said on
Friday their investigation had found Chau formed a junket agent
network in the mainland to help citizens engage in offshore and
cross-border gambling activities. 
    Chau also set up an asset management company in the mainland
to help gamblers to make cross-border fund transfers, the
Wenzhou City Public Security Bureau in the coastal city in
Zhejiang province said on its Weibo account.
    Chau and Suncity could not be reached by phone for comment,
and did not immediately respond to email inquiries.
    GGRAsia, a news outlet on the Asia casino industry, quoted a
Suncity spokesperson as saying by email early on Saturday that
"all businesses are normally operating in accordance with the
law and under the supervision of the Macau Special
Administrative Region Government."    
    Suncity's publicly listed entity in Hong Kong, Suncity Group
Holdings Ltd  1383.HK , does not include its junket operations.
    The Wenzhou authority said that as of July 2020, the "crime
syndicate" led by Chau had 199 shareholder-level agents, more
than 12,000 gambling agents and over 80,000 punter members.
    "The amount of money involved was exceptionally large,
seriously damaging our country's social management order," the
security bureau said. "The security authorities urges (Chau) to
surrender himself as soon as possible, in order to get a lenient
treatment."
    Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and Pacific representative
for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told Reuters,
"Chau's arrest warrant is no doubt sending shockwaves through
organised crime in Hong Kong and Macau, but also Cambodia, Laos
and the Philippines.
    Douglas said Suncity has been linked to major drug
traffickers and money laundering for many years.
    Chau has grown Suncity from operating a high-roller table in
Wynn Macau's casino in 2007 to a sprawling conglomerate with
thousands of employees and businesses ranging from property to
autos.
    In 2019, Suncity was singled out https://www.reuters.com/article/china-casinos-idINL4N24A13F
 by state-backed Chinese media which attacked online gambling
for causing what it described as great harm to China's social
economic order. Suncity said it did not operate any online
gaming at the time.
   

 (Additional reporting by Tom Allard in Sydney; Editing by
William Mallard)
 ((clare.jim@thomsonreuters.com; +852 2912 6653; Reuters
Messaging: clare.jim.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))