A traffic policewoman dressed in a raincoat directs traffic in Pyongyang
A 29-year old SJM casino worker was found dead under suspicious circumstances in North Korea, where he worked at a casino in which tycoon Stanley Ho has an interest. Local resident Lei Weng Fu’s death has been labelled a suicide, although his family refuses to believe this assumption.
Lei Weng Fu applied to work in Casino Pyongyang in order to save money to buy a noodle restaurant in Macau. According to his family, he was happy working in the North Korean capital prior to the incident.
The mother of the deceased told newspaper Hoje Macau that the family received a strange WeChat message from Lei Weng Fu on May 31, stating that he was being threatened due to financial problems, and that one of the shareholders of the North Korean casino threatened to block his bank accounts in Macau.
The following day, Lei Weng Fu contacted the family again, informing them that he had been fired and had been accused of stealing casino chips, something that the family believes “he would never do.”
Five days of silence followed, during which time Lei Weng Fu did not reply to the messages sent by his parents. On June 5, his parents allegedly received a call from their son’s manager in Macau informing them that Lei Weng Fu would soon arrive at the local airport. Hours later, they received news from SJM that he had committed suicide in North Korea. According to a Pyongyang hospital death certificate, he died on June 5 after being found with multiple bone fractures.
According to the family’s description, SJM said that Lei Weng Fu had suffered from a mental illness diagnosed by a doctor in North Korea, and stole casino chips. He allegedly committed suicide upon discovery.
Initially, the family was reportedly contacted by a lawyer representing SJM, who wanted them to sign a paper allowing the cremation of Lei Weng Fu’s body in North Korea. However, the family wanted to visit North Korea in order to investigate what had happened and to repatriate the body to Macau.
Lei Weng Fu’s mother and sister travelled to the secluded country, where they stayed for 17 days. “We got there and our mobiles and passports were retained. We couldn’t go where we wanted and we couldn’t talk with his [Lei Weng Fu’s] colleagues or retrieve his possessions, that disappeared,” the mother told Hoje Macau.
Faced with expenses of MOP60,000 to repatriate the body, the family requested the assistance of lawmaker Pereira Coutinho, who brought the case to Angela Leong, the managing director of SJM. The bills were soon paid, although Pereira Coutinho does not know by whom. “It is a case of human dignity, involving a local resident who was working for SJM. The operator should assume the costs. The body is in Macau now and the family can bury the young man,” he said. PB
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