After Macau´s judiciary police close five cases of “bettings via WeChat” last year, the national authorities are seeking to work with law enforcement agencies in mainland China.
In an operation carried out by the Judiciary Police in June 2017, a total of 13 mainland Chinese and four Macau residents were arrested for allegedly arranging casino betting via WeChat.
A spokesperson for the Judiciary Police, Choi Ian Fai, said that the “selling point” to clients of such an arrangement was that they “could play bet on real baccarat games in Macau”.
Looking forward to mixed efforts to curb the use of Chinese social messaging service WeChat for illegal betting both jurisdiction authorities are willing to work together. (READ SO: MACAU. GALAXY ENTERTAINMENT GROUP LTD APPLIES E-WALLETS IN THEIR PAYMENTS SYSTEMS)
Wong Sio Chak, Macau’s Security Secretary affirmed that “Crime syndicates solicited gamblers in mainland China using WeChat chat groups, then carried out transactions via WeChat Pay and broadcast casino games that took place in casinos in either Macau or the Philippines”
In addition, the figure (Macau’s authority) showed some results of last year were most of the suspects involved in gambling-related crimes had been ‘non-local’, the Judiciary Police had presented some 2,171 suspects to the Public Prosecutions Office, which represented a swell of 8.4% year-on-year. (READ SO: MACAU: STRONG WITH SOCIAL GAMBLING PROBLEMATICS)
“The Judiciary Police proactively investigated and cracked multiple loan-sharking crime syndicates last year, this effectively hammered the gaming-related criminal activities and prevented them from spreading to the community. This is believed to be the main reason the number of loan-shaking and unlawful detention cases were declining.” Affirmed Mr. Wong
