Ao Man Long is the only Secretary of the Macau Government thus far to have secured a place in Macau SAR history, yet for the worst reasons. Following the fast (and first) trial of 2007, he was sentenced to 27 years for bribe-taking, money laundering, abuse of power and the accumulation of unjustified wealth
Macau Business 2004 – 2019 | 15 Years that changed Macau
Yes, Ao Man Long changed Macau.
The arrest of the Secretary of Public Works and Transport in December 2006 was only truly understood the following year. It was not until 2007 that the community realised what was really at stake, either by the scale of the accusations or by the way in which over the years Ao Man Long had moved with impunity – Ao Man Long’s case had consequences going far beyond his multiple convictions for corruption and is still a mark today.
In this context it is no exaggeration to say that Ao Man Long has, however involuntarily, changed the history of the Special Administrative Region in such a way that if we have to choose the two most remarkable moments of these almost 20 years, we will join 5th November 2007 to the day gambling was liberalised.
The first trial commenced precisely on that day and ended on 30th January 2008.
“[Ao] was found guilty of 40 counts of bribe-taking, 13 counts of money laundering, two counts of abuse of power, one count of inaccuracy of declared information, and one count of unjustified wealth. Counts of criminal offence [meant he] was liable to 230 years’ imprisonment. As the current Criminal Code provides that imprisonment may not exceed 30 years, he was sentenced to 27 years and subject to a fine of MOP240,000, while those assets amassed through corruption were confiscated.”
Trials involving Ao as a defendant numbered three (the second began on 17th February 2008 and ended in April, when the sentence was increased to 28 and a half years; the third began in April 2012, and ended a month later, resulting in a single and final sentence of 29 years).
But there were at least three other related trials. This was because in 2012 two businessmen were convicted in Hong Kong of having corrupted Ao; plus the Macau trial of Hong Kong businessman Joseph Lau and his business partner Steven Lo Kit-shing, who were found guilty of corruption and money laundering for paying a HK$20 million bribe to Ao Man Long.
Ao Man Long is currently serving the longest prison sentence ever handed down by the courts in Macau in a high security penitentiary in Coloane. If he does not receive probation, he will remain locked up until 2035. And when he leaves, he will hardly be able to continue living in the MSAR.
After all, this case had such an impact that it even crossed the borders of the Region. In 2015, the local government and the government of the United Kingdom held a signing ceremony for the return of the illicit assets confiscated in the case of Ao Man Long from the United Kingdom. Under this arrangement, the government of the United Kingdom returned a sum of £28,718,752.63 (about MOP350 million) to the government of the Macau Special Administrative Region.
