Over two dozen individuals were sent to prison in the latest round of judicial action in Macau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Macau.- An effective crackdown on gaming-related crime<\/em><\/strong>s<\/strong><\/em><\/a> during the beginning of 2018 was the starting point for the Macanese authorities. According to Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak<\/strong>, law enforcement has been specifically targeting illicit money exchange throughout the year. This past February, authorities decided to <\/strong><\/em>set a crackdown on illegal gaming activities.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Those that would try to take advantage of gamblers\u00a0had been warned and are now going to pay the price, according to the Chinese daily newspaper, Macau Daily News. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These sentences date back to a massive scheme from 2016. The scheme was reportedly led by a 46-year-old man from Hong Kong. He received the harshest sentence and will spend the next sixteen years in prison. Overall, he was found guilty of 32 counts<\/strong> of illegal activity, including loan-sharking and organized crime, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, and joining him with sentences ranging from eight to ten years are six other members of the gang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So far, 27 people have appeared before a judge, but 2 were able to walk away. These 27 make up a total of 295 cases of loan-sharking reportedly taken place in Macau during this year. This represents a 16.1<\/strong>% increase compared to the same period last year. According to a report dated from September,\u00a0crime had dropped in the city<\/strong>\u00a0as a result of an increased intervention. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over two dozen individuals were sent to prison in the latest round of judicial action in Macau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Macau authorities have intensified their crackdown on gaming-related crime, resulting in prison sentences for over two dozen individuals involved in illicit money exchange, loan-sharking, and organized crime schemes dating back to 2016. Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak confirmed ongoing efforts targeting illegal activities, with a significant increase in loan-sharking cases despite an overall reported drop in crime due to increased intervention.","focusai_entities":"Wong Sio Chak, Macau Daily News","focusai_location":"Macau, Hong Kong","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.9), investor_analyst (0.8), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"GGR Impact Analysis?","query":"What is the anticipated impact of these intensified enforcement actions on Macau's Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) and Net Gaming Revenue (NGR) for licensed operators, particularly in the VIP segment, given the reported increase in loan-sharking cases?"},{"label":"Regulatory Framework Evolution?","query":"How might these judicial actions influence the evolution of Macau's regulatory compliance and governance frameworks, specifically regarding anti-money laundering (AML) and illicit financial flows within the gaming verticals?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,16338,439],"tags":[229,228,257,337],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","tag-gambling","tag-illegal","tag-macau","tag-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","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\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20364,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/20364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}