GGRAsia – Macau illicit FX dwindling amid crackdown: security chief

Macau illicit FX dwindling amid crackdown: security chief

Nov 28, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Unauthorised activities involving so-called “money exchange gangs” operating in Macau, have recently been “dwindling”, said the city’s Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak (pictured, centre), in a press briefing.

That was due to persistent enforcement action by the Macau and mainland China authorities, against unlicensed foreign currency exchange (FX) traders operating in or near casinos, or who solicit business from people that want to use the changed money for gambling in Macau, said the official.

He mentioned efforts by China’s Ministry of Public Security, which had announced in May a campaign against such trade, and the work of Macau’s Judiciary Police. The push included a series of Macau-mainland joint operations dubbed as “ant eradication” in Chinese.

Thursday’s briefing was to discuss crime statistics and trends for the first nine months this year, including offences related to the gaming sector.

Mr Wong also gave some colour on what had happened since September 30. He mentioned that Macau’s Law to Combat Crimes of Illegal Gambling – in effect from October 29, criminalises unlicensed money exchange for gambling purposes.

The nine-month report from his office reiterated the government’s stated position: such trade was often linked to other “serious crimes”, such as scams, robberies and assaults.

The new law had “further suppressed” illicit currency trading and “guarantees the security” of Macau’s casino gaming environment, Mr Wong said during the briefing.

Separately, the Chinese-language radio channel of public broadcaster TDM cited Judiciary Police commentary on enforcement action that had been done subsequent to the trade being criminalised.

TDM reported that from October 29, up to Wednesday (November 27), the local police had seized MOP7.11-million (US$887,087) in cash, plus gaming chips with aggregate face value of HKD1.95 million (US$250,588).

The criminal trends report said that in the calendar year to September 30 – i.e., before the law criminalising such trading – Macau police had “intercepted” 2,835 people thought to be money touts. The authorities subsequently banned from Macau 2,635 individuals. Among that cohort, 1,677 were specifically banned – on the recommendation of the local casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau – from entering local casinos.

In the January to September period, offences involving scamming were the most common type associated with unlicensed money exchange touts, the report mentioned. Such scams usually involved victimising members of the public either by giving them fake bank notes; promising money remittances that turned out to be bogus; or by transferring to their mainland bank account, money that was actually flagged by the authorities, as being “laundered”.

Macau had 1,021 gaming-related criminal cases for the first nine months, up 42.6 percent on the equivalent period of 2023. Compared to the same period in the pre-pandemic trading year of 2019, the tally of such cases went down 36.1-percent, the report stated.

Crimes relating to “scams” (254 cases) and “usury” (195 cases) were the top two gaming-related offences logged in the first nine months of this year.

The tally of gaming-related scams was up almost 64 percent year-on-year, and the number of usury cases rose 191.0 percent year-on-year. Nonetheless, both crime categories saw a reduction in volume of reported cases compared to the first nine months of 2019.

Since Covid-19 -related restrictions on travel were lifted in early 2023, cases of usury – also known as loansharking – had mostly been linked to individual perpetrators, rather than criminal syndicates, the report also mentioned.