Alvin Chau Trial Wraps, Verdict Expected January 18
Closing arguments inwards the tribulation of Alvin Chau and 20 others linked to the now-defunct junket operator, Suncity, concluded Thursday. group A three-judge panel will save a verdict inwards the two-month long vitrine Jan 18.
As chairman and CEO of Suncity, Chau was 1 of the to the highest degree powerful and wealthiest people in Macau. Suncity was the enclave’s biggest junket operator, responsible for an estimated 25% of VIP market revenue inward the world’s biggest gaming hub. In 2014, Macau’s topper year, that would feature equated to US$11 billion.
But his activities irritated the politburo in Beijing, which has been waging a war against cross-border gambling and blamed Suncity for money laundering and great flight. Sensationally, prosecutors in Wenzhou, eastern China, issued a warrant for Chau’s check in November 2021.
He was detained past Macau authorities days later, and supercharged by the special administrative region’s possess main(a) bench with running a criminal syndicate, illicit gambling activities, fraud, and money laundering.
‘No Incentive’ for Side-Betting
Central to the tribulation is the allegement that Chau and his fellowship profited from an illegal side-betting operation that cheated the Macau governing come out of simply o'er US$1 one million million in gaming taxes.
This allegedly mired the junket aggroup in private offering to multiply stakes on official bets placed by VIP clients at Macau casinos. The bets would live settled later, tax-free, according to prosecutors.
In net arguments, Chau’s lawyer Leong Hon Isle of Man argued his client had “no incentive” to risk of infection everything past offering illegal betting.
With the scale Suncity had achieved and the social position Chau enjoyed, “would he really get risked – with the thousands of workers he employed – committing these illegal activities?” Leong asked, as translated by Macau Business.
“Suncity Group’s revenue even exceeded that of Las Vegas, [which made it] the world’s largest junket company, and every coming together was recorded, but regular the attestator of the [Macau Judiciary Police] testified that no illegal activities were found in the Suncity VIP rooms,” Leong added.
Chau’s Final Plea
Chau himself took the place upright to wee a net plea, accenting that “Suncity has ne'er been a malefactor family nor a triad, as alleged.”
Suncity had in reality helped improve the in operation(p) sit of junket operators in Macau… which had turn to a greater extent ‘corporation-like’ and standardized,” he claimed.
Chau also pleaded for leniency for his co-defendants.
“All my colleagues experience sound educational backgrounds,” he said. “They feature no more motives for committing the crimes. i need to justify to them and their families for putting them inwards misery.”
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