Police dismantled a huge organisation that operated in casinos<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Macau.- Police arrested 55 people and dismantled a loan shark organisation. Working alongside the Zhuhai Public Security Bureau, Macau\u2019s Judiciary Police developed a huge operation called \u201cDouble Arrow\u201d that included 110 criminal investigators in 22 locations in Macau, and another 138 mainland police deployed to multiple cities in Zhuhai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to police spokesman Choi Ian Fai, authorities had been looking into the case for two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suspects, who are local residents as well as mainland Chinese, have reportedly been offering illicit loans to Macau gamblers since 2013, earning around HK$70 million (\u20ac8 million).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the charges facing the suspects are \u201cdeprivation of others\u2019 freedom of movement\u201d. That implies the suspects would hold indebted gamblers hostage until they could make some arrangements to repay the money they had borrowed, usually by contacting friends of relatives on the mainland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Raids also targeted a number Macau casino VIP rooms, from which they found around HK$400000 (\u20ac47,000) in cash from 17 \u201cjunket accounts\u201d. There, they arrested 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, mainland police arrested 27 individuals including the alleged mastermind and other key members of the syndicate. Cash total, almost RMB2.41 million (\u20ac310 million) from 150 bank accounts, was also frozen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is expected the police will soon announce new arrests. The authorities recovered drives with the gang\u2019s financial data recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 28 suspects arrested in Macau, aged between 27 and 50, have been charged with a range of offences including criminal syndicate, usury for gambling, deprivation of others\u2019 freedom of movement and extortion or acceptance of documents.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police dismantled a huge organisation that operated in casinos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Macau and Zhuhai police, in a joint operation dubbed \"Double Arrow,\" have dismantled a significant loan sharking syndicate operating within Macau's casino ecosystem since 2013. The operation led to 55 arrests across Macau and mainland China, targeting individuals involved in illicit lending to gamblers, which generated approximately HK$70 million. Investigations also focused on casino VIP rooms and junket accounts, resulting in charges including criminal syndicate activities and usury.","focusai_entities":"Zhuhai Public Security Bureau, Macau\u2019s Judiciary Police, Choi Ian Fai","focusai_location":"Macau, Zhuhai, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.95), payments_fraud_aml (0.9), investor_analyst (0.85), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Junket Due Diligence","query":"What enhanced due diligence measures will Macau's Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) now mandate for licensed junket operators and casino concessionaires to prevent similar illicit financing activities?"},{"label":"AML Framework Impact","query":"How will this large-scale enforcement action influence the ongoing review and strengthening of Macau's anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-financing of terrorism (CFT) frameworks, particularly concerning high-value transactions and VIP play?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,16338,439,156],"tags":[29,228,257],"class_list":["post-1099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","category-regulation-news","tag-casino","tag-illegal","tag-macau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19939,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions\/19939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}