The Prosecutor General’s Office of Wenzhou in Mainland China has approved an arrest warrant for the Suncity Group boss Alvin Chau Cheok Wa on alleged cross-border gambling activities, Chinese state-owned media huanqiu.com reported tonight (Friday).
The report quoted a statement from the prosecution office of Wenzhou, the port city of the southeastern Zhejiang province, that the Chinese city has probed a case concerning a cross-border gambling crime syndicate since July 2020, and has recently found Chau headed the syndicate that “causes severe damages to the social order of the country”.
The authorities of Wenzhou urged Chau and his comrades in the crime syndicate, including a person named Zhang Ningning, should turn themselves in as soon as possible for “lenient punishment” as they were already suspects for the crime of “establishing casino” in the mainland, the report said.
Chau has developed a network of mainland Chinese agents and representatives, who helped him to organise trips for Mainland Chinese citizens to gamble at casinos run by his firms outside of the mainland through providing credits, transportation service and technology support for the gamblers, the Wenzhou authorities were quoted as saying.
The agents and representatives also assisted the Mainland Chinese citizens to participate in cross-border online gambling activities, the statement added.
The crime syndicate headed by Chau has also established asset management firms to help Mainland Chinese gamblers for cross-border capital transfer, recover unsettled debts from gamblers and others, huanqiu.com reported, adding the syndicate also leveraged the illegal underground banking channels to provide capital settlement service for gamblers.
It was estimated that the crime syndicate, comprising 199 shareholder-level representatives and more than 12,000 agents for gambling promotion in the mainland, has developed a network of over 80,000 Mainland Chinese gamblers, the report added.
