Alvin Chau Cheok-wa (), nicknamed Sai Mai-wa (), is a
Macanese-born businessman and founder of Suncity Group.
Career
Chau is the founder and CEO of Suncity, the largest junket operator in Macau.
At times, the company controlled almost 50% of the VIP gaming business in Macau.
Chau is a former member of the
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is a political advisory body in the People's Republic of China and a central part of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s United front (China), united front system. Its members adv ...
's Guangdong Provincial Committee.
Prosecution
On November 28, 2021, Chau was arrested on a warrant issued by the city of
Wenzhou
Wenzhou; Chinese postal romanization, historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in China's Zhejiang province. Wenzhou is located at the extreme southeast of Zhejiang, bordering Lishui, Zhejiang, Lishui to the west, Taizhou, Zheji ...
.
The arrest warrant was based on allegations of illegal cross-border casino operations and money laundering.
Along with Chau, ten alleged accomplices were arrested.
Within a week of Chau's arrest, Suncity closed all of its VIP rooms in Macau.
He was convicted in January 2023 of leading a criminal syndicate, and running illegal gambling and fraud operations, and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Law enforcement authorities around the world have continued to uncover Chau's vast connections to some of southeast Asia's most prolific drug trafficking and cyber-enabled fraud networks, among other criminal groups, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
[''Transnational Organized Crime and the Convergence of Cyber-Enabled Fraud, Underground Banking and Technological Innovation in Southeast Asia: A Shifting Threat Landscape'', UNODC, October 2024. https://www.unodc.org/roseap/uploads/documents/Publications/2024/TOC_Convergence_Report_2024.pdf]
References
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1974 births
21st-century Macau businesspeople
Chinese prisoners and detainees
Members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
Living people
People from Portuguese Macau
Prisoners and detainees of China
Chinese white-collar criminals
Chinese fraudsters