Civil servant arrested
An investigation by Macau’s Judiciary Police (PJ) following a MOP$12m ($1.4m) gambling and prostitution ring bust in September has netted its biggest fish yet, a 58-year-old civil servant working within gambling regulation for the Chinese Special Administrative Region (SAR).
moderator for the prostitution ring’s website
The PJ arrested the man, last name Ng, in his apartment on Monday on suspicion of being a moderator for the prostitution ring’s website.
In a Tuesday press conference, PJ spokesman Lou Chan Fai said Ng was one of the suspects moderating the site that the ring ran to advertise prostitution services and attract sex clients. Along with Ng, police on Monday also arrested the other suspected website moderator, a 38-year-old restaurant manager surnamed Ku.
According to the Macau Post Daily, Ng admitted under police questioning to “moderating” the chat forums of the prostitution website and that he’d been working for the crime syndicate for ten years.
Decades working for DICJ
What has raised the ire of the Macau public, however, is that Ng has been working with Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) for 30 years. The DICJ is both watchdog and regulator for the SAR’s gaming industry, so having one of its employees linked to a criminal syndicate seriously undermines the body’s integrity.
Over that decade, Ng told police he had “received ‘several’ remunerations of MOP$500-$800 ($62-$99) over the decade.”
Ng added the crime ring’s kingpin, Ao leong, convinced him to work for the gang. Ng refused to reveal how much Ao — who police arrested in 2022 — had paid him over the ten years.
The Post cited a DICJ statement Tuesday confirming Ng’s temporary suspension and that “disciplinary proceedings have been launched to follow up on the case.”
Officials moved Ng to the Public Prosecutions Office on Monday where he’ll now have time to ponder getting charged with organized crime and controlling prostitutes in an SAR where, while prostitution is legal, the pimping of prostitutes is not.
Gangster’s paradise no more
Gambling criminals in Macau are running scared of the PJ and the SAR’s courts, particularly since the arrest of billionaire gambling kingpin Alvin Chau in 2021, and his 18-year jail sentence in January.
Just last month, the PJ arrested 15 Macau residents and over a score of mainland Chinese believed to be part of a criminal syndicate that operated an online gambling platform with offshore servers and allegedly made profits of ¥25m ($3.7m) at a minimum.
