Las Vegas Sands has been linked to a Hong Kong triad gang in documents that have emerged following a lawsuit filed by a former Sands employee.
The casino allegedly permitted a man who has been identified by the US Senate as an organised crime figure to move a US$100,000 gambling credit from a Las Vegas casino to one of its Macau casinos, Reuters reports.
Sands, which is controlled by Sheldon Adelson, is under investigation by US and Nevada regulators for payments which raised bribery concerns under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The investigation was initiated after the sacking of a former Sands China executive.
Reuters, reporting the matter, had seen an internal list of customer accounts that showed the credit movement from the Venetian Las Vegas to the Sands Macau on January 31, 2009, for Charles Heung Wah Keung. He is a film executive and successful businessman as well as chairman of China Star Entertainment, a Hong Kong-listed company.
He was the subject of a probe by a 1992 US Senate subcommittee into Asian organised crime. It identified him as an officer of Sun Yee On, a Chinese organised crime group involved in racketeering, loan-sharking and prostitution.
According to the news agency, Heung’s triad links were cited by a member of Nevada’s Gaming Control Board at a 2007 hearing involving an employee of another casino. Keung has admitted family links to triads in the past but strenuously denies personal involvement. His business interests cover entertainment, tourism, gambling and film production. Heung has never been convicted of being a triad member.
In court papers, Sands insists that its practice was to advance credit to a customer in one location to reflect funds that the customer had deposited in another property – the money did not move overseas.
According to court papers, Sands had conducted its own investigation on Heung, but the company has declined to reveal what it had found.
