Inside Asian Gaming

April 2016 inside asian gaming 23 less visible than ever before. But on the other hand, cross border criminal activities involving loosely organized crime groups have become far more prominent,” he says. T Wing Lo goes so far as to claim that, in the years before Hong Kong’s handover in 1997, the Chinese Communist Party formed an alliance with triads. It did so, he says, to stop triads working with pro-democracy elements in Hong Kong, to prevent triad threats to the colony’s social stability, and to block infiltration by triads from Taiwan. In 1992 China’s Minister of Public Security Tao Siju remarked that some triad members were patriots and should be respected if they upheld Hong Kong’s prosperity. As further evidence Lo produces a photograph, initially published in Hong Kong’s Next magazine, of Ye Xuanping officiating at a film production center in China the magazine claimed was owned by the Sun Yee On triad society. Ye Xuanping was Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and son of former Chinese President Ye Jianying. In the picture he is standing next to Sun Yee On leaders Jimmy and Charles Heung. It is the networks that triads have built up in China that make them so important toMacau’s casino industry. While Chinese tourists today account for over 90% of visitor spending in Macau, by law they are each only allowed to transfer at most US$50,000 (HK$390,000) out of the country in a single year. An amount this small might not get a player into a VIP room. Triads enable the flow of money into Macau that underpins the entire VIP system. The Chinese government does not accept gambling debts as legal. So if a gambler takes a loan from a VIP room operator and then refuses to repay it after returning to China, junkets do not have any legal means of collection. Junket In Focus IAG asked Macau’s Judiciary Police (PJ) to contribute to this article and in response they sent detailed figures on gambling- related crime. “Because of the lucrativeness of the gaming industry, a number of organized criminals have been attracted to operate in casinos, mainly involving usury activities in casinos and casino VIP rooms,” said the department. “Since the liberalization of the gaming industry, they have been keeping a low profile in their operations in casinos, as we have been closely monitoring the operations of triads.” The numbers show a big rise in loansharking over the past decade; from 208 cases reported in 2005 to 332 in 2014 and 808 in 2015. Cases in which the victim was unlawfully detained rose more than fifty-fold between 2005 and 2014, and then more than quadrupled again the next year. The department attributed the rise to changes in the gaming industry. VIP room revenue in Macau fell by 54% between 2014 and 2015. In January this year, AGEP president Kwok Chi Chung said his members were only able to collect 20 to 30 percent of their debts, compared to 70 percent repaid promptly when casino turnover was at its peak. While some junket cooperators are clearly resorting more to extreme measures, the PJ says it has improved its methods. Casino patrol teams work together with the force’s Case Reporting and Emergency Operation Centre for more flexible and swift action. Successful cases the department cites include the 2012 arrest of a small gang led by Artur Chiang Calderon, who were believed to be plotting murder but were ultimately convicted of aggravated assault. In 1999 Calderon had been jailed for ten years for triad membership as the right-hand man of 14K boss “Broken Tooth” Wan Kuok Koi. In 2013 the police also busted a loan sharking syndicate that had made loans to some 2,500 victims totaling more than HK$500 million. 2005 2014 2015 Usury (together with unlawful detention) 2 110 463 Usury (without unlawful detention) 206 222 345 Theft 303 582 632 Fraud 115 326 324 Appropriation of property belonging to another 139 526 407 Source: Macau Judiciary Police Macau Legislator José Coutinho says Macau’s gaming regulator, the DICJ lacks transparency and the VIP room system lacks oversight.