Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | May 2011 10 to ensure business is kept clean. An analyst with long experience of Macau gaming says: “The junket licensing process is not intended to do more than screen out people with serious criminal backgrounds, and people who may transgress in a serious fashion once they have been licensed. “The junkets are not concessionaires; their relationship with the concessionaires is contractual. That is, no contract, no business with a concessionaire. “Like any contract, it is a matter for the parties to be satisfied that they are willing to assume mutual obligations. The concessionaire should have a secure hold on its concession, and the junket operator should conduct itself in a manner which does not compromise the concessionaire.’’ He adds that a number of Macau’s large junkets—for example AERL, Neptune and Dore—have associated companies which are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. “This has given them access to capital, and the ability to make money in a manner not previously available to them. I expect that they will evolve into good corporate citizens; there is a lot at stake if they don’t,’’ the analyst adds. Meanwhile, Mr Wan’s lawyer Pedro Redinha is adamant that his client has no intention of returning to the life he led before he was jailed in 1998. Earlier this month, Mr Redinha told the South China Morning Post newspaper in Hong Kong that the only thing Mr Wan will have on his mind when he is freed is to prove his innocence. “He has told me once he’s released from prison he wants to come to my office to re-examine his case and the grounds for his imprisonment,” Redinha told the paper. “I’m absolutely sure he will contact me on his release. He still feels it was an unfair ruling and that police corruption was involved.” Time, of course, will tell. But if past history is anything to go by, it would be no surprise if Mr Wan is attracted to the limelight. Sent down It has been a long time since Portuguese colonial judiciary police director Antonio Marques Baptista watched his car explode in flames as he went jogging with his dog on Macau’s Guia Hill on May 1, 1998. Hours after the car bomb went off, Mr Wan, then the leader of a faction of Macau’s 14K triad society, was behind bars. He was never charged in connection with the bombing, but it was the final straw for Macau’s then Portuguese authorities. In the weeks prior to the attack, six murders were linked to triads—including a Marine Police officer, a gambling inspector and the chauffeur of the enclave’s most senior crime fighter. Internecine underworld warfare—most notably with a character who now operates quite legitimately in the glitzy new world of Macau gaming— also played its part in taking down the brash and boastful Mr Wan. Mr Wan was eventually jailed for a string of gangland crimes. The litany of charges against him included a plot to import a vast arsenal of weaponry, including anti-aircraft missiles, hand grenades and automatic weapons from Cambodia. In the end, his boasts about being the head of a 14K triad group and related racketeering saw him sent down for 15 years, reduced to 13 years and 10 months on appeal. Of course, there was more to Mr Wan’s downfall than a simple police investigation and highly-publicised trial. Internecine underworld warfare—most notably with a character who now operates quite legitimately in the glitzy new world of Macau gaming—also played its part in taking down the brash and boastful Mr Wan. There is no doubt he was a larger- than-life character, but he could also be less than smart. In Mr Wan’s old Heavy Club disco, an effigy of a uniformed Macau police officer used to hang over the middle of the dance floor. There is no doubt he had a significant and committed following within his faction of the 14K. This muscle was obvious after his imprisonment, which sparked a furious response as his gang went on the rampage. A wave of fire-bombings ensued. One particularly spectacular attack damaged almost 100 vehicles. Shop fronts were gutted in 24 separate arson attacks. Senior government prosecutor Lourenço Nogueiro and his pregnant wife were gunned down in a motorcycle drive-by shooting. Both survived. Godfather of South China At the height of his power in the mid- 1990s, Mr Wan raked in tens of millions of patacas from his loan sharking and illegal gambling operations, as Stanley Ho Hung- sun’s franchise system for running VIP rooms spun out of control. Mr Wan saw himself as the Godfather of South China and such was his over- developed sense of self belief that at one stage he thought he could unify the 14K factions and become “boss of bosses’’. Perhapshewasjustatalentedspindoctor, nothing more than a common or garden gangster suffering from megalomania and delusions of grandeur. Much of his approach to gangsterism can be put down to his limited schooling, a common problem among a whole generation of Macau youngsters, which also was a factor in enabling him to command such an army of foot-soldiers. He also had a strange nickname, but he’d earned it. Mr Wan cut his teeth—and lost several—in vicious street fights as a young, aspiring gangster. One veteran crime reporter recalled Mr Wan being rushed to hospital as a teenager, “blood dripping from half a dozen stabs”. In 1998 he produced a 14 million pataca (US$1.7 million at current exchange rates) autobiographical film called ‘Casino’, a tacky tale of triad mayhem. Hong Kong star Simon Yam Tat-wah—the brother of top Hong Kong police officer Peter Yam Tat-wing—starred as Mr Wan, and the film’s premiere took place in Hong Kong just five days after his arrest. “He is a good boss and I respect him as a In Focus Flashy tastes—prior to his imprisonment,Wan Kuok- koi had a penchant for fast cars and designer clothes