Informant system proposed for busting illegal gambling

The government has proposed an informant system to tackle illegal gambling crimes, Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong said yesterday.

Cheong, who is also the spokesperson of the Executive Council (ExCo), yesterday afternoon announced at a press conference the Combating Illegal Gambling Crime Bill.

The text of the bill has not been published yet.

By illegal gambling, this bill refers to all kinds of gambling activities, including sports betting, animal race betting, mahjong and lotteries. With this, the existing Law No 9/96/M – illegal matters related to animal racing, is proposed to be incorporated into this bill. Additionally, the government also plans to invalidate Law No 8/96/M – Illegal Gambling after the promulgation of this future law.

Describing illegal gambling crimes as “highly evasive of investigation and concealed,” the government intends to introduce the informant or undercover system for these crimes.

With the system constantly dropped for taxi violations, Coco Leong, director of the Legal Affairs Bureau (DSAJ), was asked to disclose more information on the matter. She underlined that “this is not completely new” and the same system exists in the anti-narcotics law. Meanwhile, communications between her bureau and the security branch have been constant on similar matters.

When further questioned if the police will be allowed to put undercover operatives into an alleged criminal syndicate for investigation, Leong said that “[the proposal] is similar to this situation.”

The bill also proposes that before judicial interrogations, suspects in an illegal gambling case be forbidden to contact anybody except their lawyers. When asked for further explanations, the law official said that it was proposed in consideration of the organizational nature of similar crimes, hinting that alignments of testimony can and should be avoided.

Another proposal is to allow investigative entities to conduct search and seizure between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. “for particular breaches,” which Leong disclosed to be illegal operations of gambling, online gambling and competitive wagers. She later added, when questioned by the press, that investigators will be allowed to enter private locations even without the consent of the owner provided that sufficient authority, such as a court warrant, was issued.

The operations, promotion and organization of online gambling and competitive wagers will be clearly banned as proposed, regardless of the location of the computer system or facilities concerned.

Clearly as a result of the Suncity case, Leong clarified that no advertising of these practices will be allowed in Macau. When asked by the Times if operators or betters will be subject to prosecution if, for example, betters proactively open a betting account with a British sports betting company, which takes bets from the Macau users.

Both Cheong and Leong emphasized that should no advertising or luring be involved or concerned, no party would be prosecuted. Cheong added that should the operator not operate in Macau, the practices would not be subject to this proposed law.

Parallel or side betting would also be banned and consequently punished in this future law.

Penalties would be escalated and detention periods extended as per the government’s proposals.