Crackdown continues on illegal Cotai money exchange

Jul 05, 2018 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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Macau’s Judiciary Police detained 13 people on Wednesday at Cotai casinos, following an anti-crime operation targeting illicit money exchange services.

According to the police, those detained were all from mainland China and were taken in for further investigation work, reported the Chinese-language service of public broadcaster Radio Macau. No further details were reported.

A similar operation took place on June 12 at Cotai casinos, resulting in the detention of eight mainlanders on suspicion of similar offences, local media had reported at the time.

Sit Chong Meng, director of Judiciary Police, mentioned to the media on June 21 that his force had been “actively” engaged since the end of 2017 in operations against illicit money exchange activities in and around casinos. At the time, Mr Sit noted that “hundreds” of mainlanders believed to have been engaged in such activity had been sent back across the border and had been banned from entering Macau for three years.

Macau’s Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak, noted in late May that a priority for the city’s police forces this year was combatting illicit money exchange inside and around casinos. Mr Wong told reporters that the police had in the first quarter this year conducted 12 operations targeted at such activities.

The police had recorded a total of 18 cases of illicit money exchange at casino hotels for full-year 2017, as compared to only five such cases in 2016.

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