{"id":27558,"date":"2022-02-24T10:24:27","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T13:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=27558"},"modified":"2026-04-23T11:02:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:02:27","slug":"macau-judiciary-police-carry-out-surprise-inspections-on-vip-rooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-judiciary-police-carry-out-surprise-inspections-on-vip-rooms","title":{"rendered":"Macau Judiciary Police carry out surprise inspections on VIP rooms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Police officers made unannounced visits to VIP gaming rooms at several Macau casinos along with inspectors from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Macau.- The Macau Judicial Police, along with staff from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), secretly visited the internal VIP gaming rooms at several Macau casinos in a series of surprise inspections over two days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some 117 people were checked and no violations were found but police found two people overstaying their visas and six people engaged in illegal currency exchange. The inspections took place on February 16 and 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unannounced visits happened as the junket industry reels from the arrests of\u00a0Alvin Chau<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Levo Chan Weng Lin<\/a>, the heads of\u00a0Suncity Group Holdings and Tak Chun Group<\/strong>, two of the city\u2019s largest junket groups. Several casino operators<\/a>\u00a0have decided to cease all junket arrangements at their venues from December 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Macau recorded\u00a01,372 gaming-related crimes in 2021<\/a>. The figure was up 23.2 per cent from the 1,114 cases identified in 2020. Authorities said an increase in tourists after the lifting of Covid-19 countermeasures was a factor in the rise in gaming-related crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) reported that Macau\u00a0received 7.971m tourists in 2021<\/a>, up 30.7 per cent year-on-year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police officers made unannounced visits to VIP gaming rooms at several Macau casinos along with inspectors from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"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 authorities, including the Judicial Police and the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), conducted unannounced inspections of VIP gaming rooms across several casinos, identifying visa overstays and illegal currency exchange, though no direct gaming violations. These actions underscore heightened regulatory scrutiny amidst significant disruption in the junket industry following high-profile arrests and the cessation of junket operations by some casino operators. The inspections coincide with a reported 23.2% increase in gaming-related crimes in 2021, partly attributed to a 30.7% rise in tourist arrivals.","focusai_entities":"Macau Judicial Police, Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), Suncity Group Holdings, Tak Chun Group, Alvin Chau, Levo Chan Weng Lin, Statistics and Census Service (DSEC)","focusai_location":"Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (1.0), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"VIP Governance Frameworks?","query":"What specific governance frameworks are Macau casino operators implementing to mitigate risks associated with illicit currency exchange and visa overstays in VIP operations?"},{"label":"GGR Impact of Crackdown?","query":"How will the ongoing regulatory crackdown on junket operations and increased scrutiny of VIP rooms impact Macau's GGR projections and the long-term viability of the high-roller gaming vertical?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,439],"tags":[23911,23906],"class_list":["post-27558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-macau-casinos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27558","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27558"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27576,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27558\/revisions\/27576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}