Former associates of Suncity founder Alvin Chau were reportedly involved in a smuggling operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Macau.- An investigation by the Financial Times and the Royal United Services Institute has alleged that two former business associates of\u00a0Alvin Chau<\/a>, the founder of former Macau junket operator Suncity Group, were involved in oil smuggling that enabled North Korea to obtain crude and develop nuclear weapons.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report claims that\u00a0Gary To Ka-hin<\/strong>, CEO of Sun Gold Holdings, has links to the 14K triad, an organised crime syndicate active in Hong Kong and Macau. To Ka-hin is alleged to have co-owned the Unica, one of three foreign vessels that had direct access to North Korea and which made at least 23 sailings from 2019 onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other businessman implicated is\u00a0Sun Tit Fan<\/strong>, a grandson of a deceased agent sent by North Korea to Macau. He is alleged to have operated companies that purchased tens of millions of dollars worth of oil through the subsidiary of a North Korean bank that was under US sanctions. Sun Tit Fan is a director of Sun International Automobile Company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the report,\u00a0To Ka-hin has denied having ties to the Unica oil tanker<\/strong>, saying that he sold the firm that owned the vessel in 2018. However, the Financial Times claims to have found evidence suggesting he remained in control of the company until at least 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alvin Chau Cheok Wa\u00a0<\/strong>was sentenced to 18 years<\/a>\u00a0in prison for involvement in off-books gambling in Macau. Both the prosecution and defence have lodged\u00a0appeals against the sentence<\/a>. Chau received 12 years for running a criminal organisation, five for 54 counts of high-value theft and four years for conducting illegal gambling in authorised venues. Some of the sentences are concurrent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former associates of Suncity founder Alvin Chau were reportedly involved in a smuggling operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":25148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"An investigation by the Financial Times and RUSI alleges that two former business associates of Suncity Group founder Alvin Chau were involved in an oil smuggling operation to North Korea, enabling its nuclear weapons program and evading US sanctions. The report implicates Gary To Ka-hin, CEO of Sun Gold Holdings, and Sun Tit Fan, a director of Sun International Automobile Company, in activities linked to organized crime and illicit financial transactions. This follows Alvin Chau's recent conviction for illegal gambling and criminal organization in Macau.","focusai_entities":"Alvin Chau, Suncity Group, Financial Times, Royal United Services Institute, Gary To Ka-hin, Sun Gold Holdings, 14K triad, Unica, Sun Tit Fan, Sun International Automobile Company","focusai_location":"Macau, North Korea, Hong Kong","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Macau Licensing?","query":"What are the potential implications of these allegations for the ongoing regulatory and licensing frameworks within Macau's gaming sector, particularly concerning due diligence requirements for junket operators and their associates?"},{"label":"Broader AML Scrutiny?","query":"How might these revelations of sanctions evasion and organized crime links by former associates of a prominent iGaming figure intensify AML scrutiny across the global iGaming and financial services industries?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,439],"tags":[23906,23702],"class_list":["post-777003923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","tag-macau-casinos","tag-suncity-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777003923","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=777003923"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777003923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777003934,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777003923\/revisions\/777003934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777003923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777003923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777003923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}