A nephew of retired Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho has been sentenced to eight years in prison for running a prostitution ring at the Hotel Lisboa.
The sentence, reported last week, was the second for Alan Ho, identified in local news reports as a former Lisboa executive who held a position as a director of subsidiaries for SJM Holdings, the operating company for his uncle’s casinos, among them the Lisboa.
He was first sentenced in 2016 to 13 months on a single count of “exploitation of prostitution” at the hotel and was released on time served.
The lengthier sentence was imposed by the Macau Court of Second Instance on an appeal by the city’s Public Prosecutions Office, which argued Ho’s activities were part of an organized criminal enterprise, a charge that carries much stiffer penalties.
Ho and other executives of the hotel were arrested in January 2015 along with 96 suspected prostitutes who were employed by a ring valued at MOP400 million (US$50 million), much of it generated from fees the women were required to pay to Ho and his cohorts for permission to operate in the hotel, solicit clients in public areas and use rooms set aside for liaisons with customers.
Among those whose sentences also were increased by the Court of Second Instance were Kelly Wang, a former Lisboa deputy manager, who reportedly charged prostitutes for the use of hotel rooms independently of Ho. Her original jail term of 29 months was upped to six years for being part of the same criminal enterprise. A former Lisboa manager, Peter Lu, Bruce Mak, a former security chief, and a former assistant of Wang’s, Qiao Yan, were given five years.
