Glamorous and sophisticated, he ran one of the companies targeting Chinese magnates and has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for 162 crimes including fraud, criminal association and tax evasion.
In Macau, Asia’s gambling mecca, most of the money casinos win doesn’t come from tourists playing the occasional roulette or throwing a few coins into the slots, but from high-end VIP gambling. Being the only place in China where gambling is allowed, numerous magnates from the continent make a pilgrimage to the former Portuguese colony every year, leaving behind real fortunes. The ‘junkets’ organize their trips. For example, the legal companies are known that advance money and offer luxury services, such as private rooms in casinos where the minimum bet is 100,000 Hong Kong dollars (11,700 euros).
A good testament to its importance in the Macanese economy is that a decade ago these “junkets” accounted for 70 percent of casino revenues, much more than mass betting. While the weight has dropped due to President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign and the impact of the pandemic, it currently stands at around 50 percent. Of this, 40 percent was taken over by the Suncity company, which was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and employed 12,000 agents.
The president, Alvin Chau, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for 162 of the 289 crimes charged against him, including fraud, illegal gambling, criminal organization and tax evasion. In a trial that lasted four months and in which 21 defendants sat on the bench, twelve members of his organization were convicted along with him. Although the court estimates that a total of 8.2 billion Hong Kong dollars (nearly a billion euros) was defrauded from Macao’s treasury, it cleared them of money laundering, the very nickname Alvin Chau had: ‘Rice wash Wa’.
The verdict ends the fast-paced career of Alvin Chau, who at the age of 48 was one of the most brilliant businessmen in Macao. From a humble background, he founded Suncity in 2007 with the help of one of the imprisoned leaders of the local triads, “Broken Tooth Koi,” according to the South China Morning Post. In a multi-million dollar company like the ‘junkets’, the job is not only to serve VIP customers from China, but also to collect their debts if they lose at the gaming tables. In total, Chau and the rest of his organization were accused of dealing with up to HK$824 billion (96 billion euros) in illegal gambling and winning some HK$21.5 billion (2.525 million euros).
But what sealed his fate was that, according to Chinese authorities, he attempted to introduce gambling to mainland China with illegal internet gambling platforms run from the Philippines and Cambodia, which he has always denied. Gone are the days when the sophisticated and glamorous Alvin Chau appeared in tabloids with his wife, businesswoman Heidi Chen, and later with his mistress, model Mandy Lieu, serving a sentence in Coloane Prison, with whom he has a total of seven children. And from the official newspaper library, they are trying to erase his ties to the regime as a member of the Canton Political-Consultative Conference (Guangdong) and producer of propaganda films such as Operation Red Sea. For Alvin Chau, life is more than roulette.
Source: La Verdad
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