China issues arrest warrant for Macau junket mogul

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China issues arrest warrant for Macau junket mogul

A Macau junket operator is seen at a gaming fair in Macau, China November 18, 2015. REUTERS Bobby Yip File Photo

HONG KONG, Nov 27, Reuters -- Wenzhou, a city in eastern China, has issued an arrest warrant for Macau junket mogul Alvin Chau, accusing him of operating gambling activities in mainland China.

Chau is the founder of Macau's biggest junket operator, Suncity, which operates VIP gambling rooms across Asia. Junket operators bring high rollers to play at casinos, extending their credit and collecting on their debts.

Casino gambling is illegal in China outside the special administrative region of Macau, the world's largest gambling hub.

An investigation found that Chau had formed a junket agent network in the mainland to help citizens engage in offshore and cross-border gambling activities, the Wenzhou City Public Security Bureau said on Friday.

The authority in the coastal city of Zhejiang province said on its Weibo account that Chau also set up an asset management company in the mainland to help gamblers make cross-border fund transfers.

Chau and Suncity could not be reached by phone for comment, and they did not respond immediately to email requests for comment.

A Suncity spokesman said by email early on Saturday that the company had contacted Chau and had not received a response, according to GGRAsia, a news outlet on the Asia casino industry.

The company said it is following up on the relevant issues. The company emphasizes 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 the crime syndicate led by Chau had 199 shareholder-level agents, more than 12,000 gambling agents and more than 80,000 punter members as of July 2020.

The security bureau said that the amount of money involved was extremely large, seriously damaging our country's social management order. The security authorities urge 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 that Chau's arrest warrant is no doubt sending shockwaves through organized 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.

Suncity has grown 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 the year 2019 Suncity was attacked by state-backed Chinese media that attacked online gambling for harm to China's social economic order. Suncity did not operate any online gaming at the time.