{"id":33878,"date":"2022-09-28T08:55:42","date_gmt":"2022-09-28T11:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=33878"},"modified":"2026-04-23T04:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:29:16","slug":"only-two-defendants-partly-accept-charges-in-suncity-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/only-two-defendants-partly-accept-charges-in-suncity-trial","title":{"rendered":"Only two defendants partly accept charges in Suncity trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The defendants including former Suncity Group CEO Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, have finished testifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Macau.- The defendants in the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/alvin-chau-trial-starts-today\" target=\"_blank\">Suncity junket trial<\/a>&nbsp;finished giving evidence today (September 28), with only two pleading guilty to some of the charges against them. Only 10 defendants actually attended the trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some 21 defendants, including former Suncity Group (now&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/suncity-group-gets-go-ahead-to-change-name-let-group-holdings\" target=\"_blank\">LET Group Holdings Ltd<\/a>) CEO Alvin Chau Cheok Wa have been charged with illegal gambling activities, participation in a criminal group, fraud and money laundering. According to the indictment, they ran a criminal syndicate that cheated the Macau government out of HK$8.26bn (US$1.05bn) in tax revenue between March 2013 and 2021.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 10th defendant to appear in court,<strong> Vincent Loi<\/strong>, former assistant vice president of VIP services at Suncity Group, denied that he was involved in managing the funds and operations of a criminal syndicate headed by Chau Cheok Wa. Only <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/former-colleague-of-alvin-chau-admits-suncity-took-unregistered-bets\" target=\"_blank\">Cheong Chi Kin<\/a>&nbsp;and Tim Chau Chun Hee have admitted involvement in under-the-table betting known as multiplier betting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With multipliers, the bet denominated at the casino gaming table would represent a private wager that would be a multiple of the \u201cofficial\u201d wager, thereby avoiding the 39 per cent tax rate on gross gaming revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cheong Chi Kin<\/strong>, a former colleague of Alvin Chau Cheok Wa and a co-defendant in the former Suncity Group CEO\u2019s trial, told Macau\u2019s Court of First Instance that<strong>&nbsp;he ran two companies that facilitated under-the-table betting&nbsp;<\/strong>and brought customers to VIP rooms at Suncity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He told prosecutor Lai U Hou that&nbsp;<strong>he had ties to companies specialising in handling gaming transactions<\/strong>, which had many employees, but said those groups had no affiliation with Sun City. He also&nbsp;<strong>admitted to placing multiplier bets in the Suncity VIP room<\/strong>&nbsp;and in rooms run by other junket operators in Macau, saying that Chau had referred him to many customers interested in multiplier betting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tim Chau<\/strong>, executive director of Alvin Chau&#8217;s local media-and-travel company UO Group, also admitted he had invested in one of the side-bet operations.&nbsp;Alvin Chau has denied all the charges but has told the court that under-the-table betting has long been widespread in Macau casinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trial is now moving to the next stage, with witnesses to take the stand starting tomorrow (September 29). The<strong> Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau<\/strong> is expected to testify, while over 90 individuals are listed as witnesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The defendants including former Suncity Group CEO Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, have finished testifying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":21187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Suncity junket trial in Macau has concluded defendant testimonies, with former CEO Alvin Chau denying charges of illegal gambling, fraud, and money laundering. The indictment alleges a criminal syndicate defrauded the Macau government of HK$8.26bn in tax revenue through \"multiplier betting,\" a scheme designed to evade the 39% GGR tax rate. The trial now proceeds to witness testimonies, including the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.","focusai_entities":"Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, Suncity Group, LET Group Holdings Ltd, Vincent Loi, Cheong Chi Kin, Tim Chau Chun Hee, Lai U Hou, UO Group, Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau","focusai_location":"Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.75), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Macau Junket Future","query":"What are the long-term implications of this trial for the junket operator model and VIP segment revenue generation in Macau?"},{"label":"Regulatory Enforcement Impact","query":"How will the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau's testimony and the trial's outcome influence future regulatory enforcement strategies and governance frameworks for GGR reporting and tax compliance in Macau?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,439],"tags":[23702],"class_list":["post-33878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","tag-suncity-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33878","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=33878"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33903,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33878\/revisions\/33903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}