Charged with illegal promotion
Crown Resorts Ltd. staffers who have been held in China since last October on gambling-related crimes will make their first public appearance in Baoshan District Court on June 26, according to reports.
The 18-member team led by marketing executive Jason O’Connor were recently formally charged with offenses related to the promotion of gambling, Australia’s largest casino operator acknowledged. It is illegal to gamble or promote gambling anywhere in China besides Macau. The Crown employees, detained for eight months in a Shanghai detention center since they were apprehended, stand as a stark example of China’s commitment to enforce its gaming laws.
Bloomberg News reported that the case will “make it clearer to foreign casino operators such as Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Wynn Resorts Ltd. where to draw the line in attracting mainland clients without selling themselves as a gambling destination.”
The action against the Crown employees is seen as a larger strategy by Beijing to keep capital from illegally leaving the Chinese mainland. “Overseas gambling is a key way of money laundering and sending capital overseas,” said Wang Guoqiang, a lawyer at Shanghai law firm Trend. “The government is very serious about stopping illegal capital outflows, so there’s a renewed emphasis on cracking down on related activities.”
The arrests caused after-shocks throughout the casino industry and caused a plunge in high-roller play at Crown resorts; it also prompted Crown chief James Packer to retreat from his international operations and concentrate on business closer to home. As a result, Bloomberg News reported last week, Crown Resorts Ltd.’s operations in eight Asian countries are “suddenly hard to find.”
Seven of the firm’s eight international offices appeared to be closed, the news agency reported, including one in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which a former employee said closed about six months ago. Staff at the Bangkok office said the location closed a month ago. Offices in Taipei and Jakarta also were closed, and there were no signs of life at locations in Singapore, Macau and Kuala Lumpur.
All of this seems to affirm that Crown honcho James Packer has fully withdrawn from international ventures; he has sold out his share of the former Melco Crown International, his partnership with Lawrence Ho. According to Bloomberg, Packer “has made resolving the situation in China his top priority.”
