Alvin Chau Fails to Get Reduced Prison Sentence, Must Pay Triple Damages to Macau
Former Macau gambling top banana Alvin Chau has seen his sentence for fraud quashed past the enclave’s appeals court, the Court of Second Instance. But the ruling testament come in as skimp consolation to the ex-Suncity boss, as the judicature also affirmed his 18-year sentence for illegal play and outlaw association.
It also tripled the compensation that Chau and Suncity must compensate to the Macau government.
Fall of a Junket Magnate
Chau was ace of the wealthiest and most powerful people inwards Macau before his stoppage inward tardily 2021. Suncity was the biggest junket manipulator inward the market, generating an estimated 25% of VIP revenue inwards the world’s biggest gaming hub. He was convicted inward January, along with 20 other Suncity defendants, of 162 charges of fraud, illegal gambling, and criminal association.
Many of these convictions related to to Suncity offering VIP clients illicit “under-the-table” bets 'tween 2013 and 2021. These involved multiplying stakes on prescribed bets placed past VIP clients at Macau casinos that would follow settled later, tax-free.
In this way, Chau and Suncity swindled the Macau authorities come out of HK$8.2 1000000000 (US$1.1 billion) inward task revenue, according to prosecutors.
Suncity was also accused of operating online gambling platforms from the Philippines and Cambodia that lawlessly targeted players in Macau and mainland China.
In February, lawyers for Chau appealed his sentence. At the same time, Macau’s Office of the Prosecutor General petitioned the court of justice to step-up his prison house term past 3.5 years for a amount of 21.5 years.
‘Criminal Enterprise’
Last week, the Margaret Court of Second Instance not guilty Chau and half a dozen others of fraud charges against the Macau administration but allay held them hangdog of felon association.
Specifically, that involved the illegal victimization of play inwards an authorised location (for under-the-table betting) and the illicit using of gambling remote authorised locations (for online gambling), Macau Business reports.
The royal court also dictated that the “criminal enterprise” (Suncity) had generated US$2.25 1000000000 from under-the-table betting and simply under US$1 one million million from illegal online wagering. That agency Chau and his buster Suncity defendants testament now get to pay off US$3.2 1000000000000 to the Macau government.
While Chau failed to catch a shorter prison term, quaternion of his co-defendants saw their sentences reduced from 15 years to 12.5. Those were Celestino Ali, Cheong Chi Kin, Chau Chun Hee, and Philip Wong Pak Ling.
Chau’s check and conviction, on with that of Tak Chun hirer Levo Chan on similar charges, forced Macau to turn over laws to reform and bound the junket segment.
In June, the Macau Professional Association of Gaming Promoters said in that respect were simply 14 licensed junkets operating inwards the gaming hub. That’s compared with o'er 40 during Macau’s heyday inward 2014.
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