A committee of the Philippines Senate has cleared Macau gaming tycoon and junketeerJack Lam of bribery charges in connection with an investigation into illegal online gambling and illegal immigration at his Fontana Leisure Park and Casino north of Manila.
The case began when Fontana, located in the Clark Freeport Zone, was shut down by The Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corp., the country’s top casino regulator, allegedly for running a call center that served as a front for unlicensed online gambling.
Web gambling has been in the government’s crosshairs since the 2016 election of President Rodrigo Duterte, who opposes it and who previously called for Lam’s arrest for bribery and “economic sabotage”.
The investigation reputedly found that Fontana was employing some 1,300 Chinese nationals who were in the country illegally, triggering a second investigation by the Bureau of Immigration and charges by bureau officials that a Lam representative attempted to bribe them to secure the release of workers arrested in a BI raid.
But the Senate committee has concluded instead that Lam and Fontana were victims of “extortion” by BI officials, two of whom have since been dismissed and could face criminal charges, according to local news reports.
It was not clear from those reports whether the committee’s findings mark the end of all the Fontana-related investigations.
A local lawyer for Lam said his client would not be returning to the Philippines.
