Courts | Alan Ho gave orders to investigate Lisboa’s prostitution ring

The Hotel Lisboa had received and handled complaints from women who were being asked to pay to access a “working room” in the hotel, says the former General Manager, Samuel Yeung. Mr Yeung also revealed that Alan Ho had requested for those complaints to be investigated.
These are two of the facts that have come to light after the latest session of the trial that involves six defendants accused of being part of a prostitution ring that operated in Hotel Lisboa. These defendants include its former executive director, Alan Ho.
Several witnesses related to the suspects Peter Lun and Alan Ho, who is Stanley Ho’s nephew, were heard during the court session that took place at the Court of First Instance (TJB) on Friday. The highlights of the day came with the examination of the former Hotel Lisboa General Manager, Samuel Yeung, who worked in the hotel for 18 years, prior to Peter Lun.
The former head manager, who is close to Alan Ho, and with whom he is said to have had daily meetings, explained to the court in more detail the functions and working duties of the several managerial positions at Hotel Lisboa, as well as his working relationship with the first defendant.
Yeung said that on several occasions the hotel received complaints accusing several people of extorting money from the prostitutes to enable them to work at the hotel, and said that those cases were always taken seriously by the administration and were investigated as much as possible. He added: “In 2012 or 2013 we had several meetings about this topic with Mr Alan Ho in several instances.
“Firstly there were complaints about the security, then about some of the managers. Mr Ho asked me to investigate all those accusations. I called the numbers to learn more about [the matter] and delivered the information to Mr Lun,” he recalled, saying that he resorted on several occasions to reviewing recordings from CCTV in order to try to find relevant instances, but found nothing on those recordings that could sustain those accusations.
Yeung also mentioned that later there were other accusations of the same kind that arrived by email. Questioned by the judge Rui Ribeiro, the witness said that they replied to the emails and tried to request any evidence from those people, but nothing was received.
Similar to a previously examined witness (Lam Wa), Yeung portrayed Alan Ho as a hardworking, zealous and honest man, dedicated to work and to the large number of positions and working duties he has held in almost all the companies of the groups headed by the gaming tycoon Stanley Ho, both in Macau and abroad.
According to Yeung, the limitations applied to the use of rooms on Hotel Lisboa’s fifth and sixth floors came down to a management decision taken around 2004–2005 due to a large number of complaints from hotel guests regarding noise and continuous movement in the corridors. Until then, there were no limitations at all for the women dedicated to the prostitution business in the hotel, and they could occupy any room like any other hotel client. Those women were known at the hotel by the nickname Young Single Ladies (YSL).
The former manager also explained that those floors were not for exclusive use by the YSL; there was another area with around 20 to 30 other rooms available to any customer, which was usually used by agency tour groups.
Regarding the so-called “Assistant Manager Desk” (AM Desk), the counter indicated in previous sessions of the trial as being the “special” location for registration of the YSL, the former manager said that sometimes it was used and at other times it was not, depending on the needs of the hotel. He further explained that the counter was not exclusive to the YSL, but was also used for the checking in and out of large groups of people in order to avoid complications and the accumulation of people at the other counters throughout the hotel. The counter also served as a point for complaints to be reported.
Yeung said the use of that counter or the “normal” front-desk was based only on the number of people using the counters, and particularly the number of YSL who were searching for a room.
He said also that during the time he worked in the hotel, he never heard of any other means of determining suitability of guests besides the presence of their name, or lack thereof, on the hotel “Black List,” a list which included names of guests who had caused trouble or damage to the hotel.
Questioned by the lawyer Rui Sousa as to whether at any time the police authorities had made any recommendation to the hotel not  to accept certain clients who would use the rooms for prostitution,  Yeung said “No, never!” He added that every time the police conducted operations or searches of the hotel, they never explained why they were doing it or, subsequent to that, any outcomes of those operations.
As he explained to the court: “They [the police] just invited the girls to go to the police station, after which some would return and others would not, or would return escorted by the police officers to do the check-out. We never understood why. We suspected that it had to do with a visa expiration or overstay, but we were never informed of that by anyone from the police,” Sanuel Yeung said.
Another of the witnesses who provied evidence on Friday was the Chief Executive Officer of SJM Holdings, Ambrose So, who reaffirmed description of Alan Ho as a fair and honest person.
So said that he had heard Alan Ho saying that he wanted to give a “cleaner image” to the hotel and that the prostitutes were affecting that image.