LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 501 today called for a coordinated U.S. federal investigation into the gambling junket operator SunCity Group and its historical relationships with U.S. gaming companies.
In separate letters to the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Secretary of State, the U.S. Treasury Department, the White House National Security Council and the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Local 501 highlighted alarming public reports on SunCity Group and its owner Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, including a recent arrest by Chinese authorities against Chau.
Alvin Chau’s SunCity Group has operated as a “junket agent” for casinos throughout East Asia, recruiting and issuing credit to high rollers (many from mainland China) to gamble in exclusive casino VIP rooms. The VIP-junket industry, however, has long been tainted by reports of organised crime influence and money laundering.
In November 2021, authorities in Macau, China, reportedly detained Chau for running “a cross-boundary gambling syndicate, organising illegally Chinese residents to travel to VIP junkets overseen by Chau and located outside the mainland, in order to take part in cross-boundary gambling.”1
Prior, in February 2021, regulators in New South Wales, Australia, cited “information relating to US Government reports that Alvin Chau had links to organised crime.” The government flagged an incident where local casino officials discovered $5.6 million in cash stored in a SunCity high-roller room – an event that “sent money-laundering alarms ringing” at the casino. “It is clear that money laundering did occur within that room,” Australian regulators concluded during public hearings.2
In October 2020, The Guardian reported that Alvin Chau “is currently banned from entering Australia due to his alleged criminal links.”3
Concerns over Chau’s SunCity operations have geopolitical concern for U.S. authorities. In 2016, testimony from Philippines Senate proceedings revealed that a Chau-controlled SunCity VIP room received tens of millions of dollars stolen in the infamous $81 million heist from the Bangladesh Central Bank account held at the New York Federal Reserve. North Korean state-sponsored hackers reportedly orchestrated the theft. Public reporting also recently uncovered a major joint venture between Alvin Chau and China’s largest state-run conglomerate, CITIC.
These findings should alarm U.S. officials. Multiple U.S.-based casino licensees with overseas operations have for years collaborated extensively with Chau’s SunCity Group to bring high roller gamblers to their properties and accommodate exclusive “SunCity”-branded VIP rooms inside their casinos.
Local 501 is engaging with U.S. federal authorities because state-run gambling regulators have proven either unwilling or incapable of regulating VIP-junket activity and its interplay with U.S. casino companies operating abroad.
The International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 501 represents over 2,000 members working in casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada.