Alvin Chau’s defense questions rationale behind allegations

The defense in the landmark Suncity case has questioned why the company would breach the law when it already had billions in annual income, local media reports.

Court sessions were about to conclude as the first-instance judicial procedure entered its closing statements yesterday.

Lawyer Leong Hon Man, who is representing Alvin Chau, reiterated that Suncity was not operating illicit gambling.

He pointed out that Chau and Suncity had fostered “significant legal income” and had helped boost the industry to a scale even larger than Las Vegas in terms of revenue, adding that the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) had not found any breaches in so many years.

He described the alleged illicit income (that surpassed MOP21 billion) the Judiciary Police (PJ) reportedly recorded between 2013 and 2021 as “a drop in the bucket” when compared with Suncity’s then annual income surpassing MOP10 billion.

As such, and in light of the company needing to secure jobs for several thousands of workers, the lawyer asked on what grounds the company would want to break the law. The allegation goes against common sense, according to the lawyer.

On the other hand, the lawyer also hoped that the judges would reconsider the legality and authenticity of the evidence collected by the mainland police.

He pointed out that the Court of Final Appeal had ruled against a conviction based solely on criminal reports from the mainland police. In this case, testimonies were collected in mainland China but were only presented to the local court in written form.

Moreover, the lawyer questioned whether the voice messages spoken in Cantonese were correctly transcribed into written Chinese or Putonghua before being presented to the local court. It was also revealed that the PJ had directly cited these testimonies without further verification.

The reliability of the evidence was also a concern, the lawyer said. He said he could not see actual evidence proving that Chau co-formed or co-operated side betting companies found in Chau’s phone, nor had any evidence of flow of funds been presented.

During the court sessions it was revealed that two Excel documents were found on Suncity’s computer server, which the prosecution considered key data in the indictment. Leong questioned the significance of the two documents, as the data had been hand-typed by the employees at two companies owned by the fifth defendant, Cheong Chi Kin, and extracted from the same pool of data.

Regarding the accusation of gambling in unpermitted venues, Leong reiterated that 71 venues listed in the PJ report were not known by the casino operators. Another 15 venues were repeated in the report after lawyers cross-referenced with casino operators. He questioned how Suncity could participate in side-betting which was not conducted at its VIP casinos.

He then questioned how valid the evidence was as PJ did not verify or clarify some points, such as who made side bets with whom and what the relevant leverage amounts were.

The prosecution delivered its concluding statement yesterday morning. Prosecutor-coordinator Kuok Kin Hong began by saying that Chau’s testimony in court evidenced that he was engaged in side-betting.

In contrast to the defending lawyer’s view, Kuok suggested that all evidence collected from Suncity’s computer systems, wiretapping Chau and the mainland police all constituted key pieces of evidence. He further cited evidence revealing that from 2014, Chau had started ordering the separation of accounts for legal and illegal bets. Chau also personally analyzed the side bets of several gamblers and allowed for delayed repayment of debts arising from side-betting.

Chat group records also showed that members had reported data on 228 side-betting entries to Chau, according to Kuok, and Chau had issued instructions 14 times.

Kuok referred to the operational analysis report of Suncity to hint that the “Main Camp” was a Chau-owned side betting company. It was also noted that the performance of Chau-owned companies was more profitable than other side-betting companies.

Although witnesses had divided opinions on the role of the “Operations Department,” some Suncity employees articulated their tacit understanding from work about the department’s ownership by Suncity. Training related to so-called operations, which the prosecution used to describe side-betting, was also provided to workers. There was even key performance index evaluation for the matter, as some workers testified.

Cross-referencing with financial documentation, Kuok believed that Suncity had operated side-betting under a relatively complicated structure. Computer systems were also upgraded to support the operations, Kuok added.

Five defending lawyers respectively representing Wynn, SJM, MGM, Venetian and Galaxy agreed with Kuok’s statements. The five concessionaires filed for compensation to be paid by the defendants.