Macau ‘junket king’ Alvin Chau’s life in the limelight goes bust after illegal gambling arrest
- Suncity Group’s high-flying owner had an appealing rags-to-riches tale, but reportedly built his empire with the help of convicted gangsters
- The 47-year-old, now sitting in a Macau prison cell, has repeatedly defended himself in recent years from accusations of illegal dealings in mainland China
With his signature slicked-back hair and well-tailored suits, Alvin Chau Cheok-wa looked more like a celebrity than a businessman as he basked in the limelight, often with his beautiful Malaysian-American mistress draped over his arm.
Last weekend, Chau, the boss of Macau’s largest casino junket operator, made the headlines again, but this time in handcuffs.
The chief executive of Suncity Group was arrested over his alleged connection to an illegal cross-border gambling and money-laundering syndicate.
Macau’s judiciary police on November 28 announced they had detained nine men and two women amid an investigation into an illegal gambling platform operated by a junket company for mainlanders.
Among them was a 47-year-old Macau businessman surnamed Chau – identified as the head of the syndicate – but police did not reveal his full name.
The arrest came more than a year after Chau produced a video denying rumours circulating online and in Macau that he was being investigated for sending employees to the mainland to take part in illegal gambling activities.
Now, Chau, the founder of the Suncity empire who stood down earlier this month as chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Suncity Group Holdings Ltd, is in pretrial detention in Macau’s Coloane prison.
