18 year sentence for Macau gambling kingpin
Alvin Chau, Macau’s gambling kingpin has been sentenced at 18 years imprisonment for more than 100 counts including organized crime and illegal gambling.
The 48-year-old was found guilty in a case that centred on illegal bets exceeding HK$823.7bn (£85.7bn; $105bn).
Chau, a well-known and prominent figure in the local gambling industry, denied the charges.
Macau is a former Portuguese colony and is the only Chinese city that allows gambling.
Suncity Group was founded by Chau, who was also the chairman. It was Macau’s biggest operator for junkets, which were organized trips for wealthy gamblers to casino.
It provided loans to high-rollers from China and organized for them to travel to Macau. It also operated VIP rooms at Macau’s casino.
He was nicknamed “Junketking” and resigned in December 2021, just days after his arrest.
Prosecutors accused Chau of leading and creating a criminal syndicate that facilitated undeclared betting. The government suffered a loss of tax income of more than HK$8.26bn, they claimed.
While the court granted most of the charges to the prosecutors, it acquitted Chau for money laundering. Twenty other defendants are also involved in this high-profile case.
Coronavirus restrictions and a crackdown on money leaving the Chinese mainland have had a devastating effect on the gambling industry.
A court in Wenzhou, an eastern Chinese city, jailed over 30 people in September for cross-border gambling.
After Chau’s arrest Suncity closed all its VIP areas. However, the number of junkets operating in Macau has been declining since before Chau’s arrest. Official figures show that there are only 36 remaining junket operators, down from 100 in 2019.
Chau, with his long hair and golden skin is well-known in China-speaking countries. He is also a favorite of tabloids that focus on his love life.
He was called “Washing Rice Wa” by local media after a character on a sitcom. However, the name could also be interpreted as a euphemism to money laundering.