Category: gambling

wow! the chinese are the victims here? #onlinegambling #POGO

sharing cito beltran’s philstar column  (and comments to) “This speaks for itself” :  an official statement / press release from the “Chinese Embassy.”  flabbergasted.

Remarks by Chinese embassy spokesperson on issues of Chinese Citizens concerning gambling in the Philippines

The Chinese Embassy has taken note of recent remarks by Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) vice president Jose Tria that Chinese working in Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) will be transferred to “self-contained” communities or hubs. The Chinese Embassy expresses its grave concern over such potential move by PAGCOR, which may infringe on the basic legal rights of the Chinese citizens concerned, and strongly urges the Philippine government to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens in the Philippines.

II. The Chinese Government always requires Chinese citizens overseas to abide by local laws and regulations and not to work illegally in foreign countries. The Chinese Embassy in the Philippines has repeatedly issued consular reminders in this regard, and has on many occasions clearly stated the position to relevant departments of the Philippines.

III. According to the Chinese laws and regulations, any form of gambling by Chinese citizens, including online-gambling,  gambling overseas, opening casinos overseas to attract citizens of China as primary customers, is illegal. The casinos and offshore gaming operators (POGOs) and other forms of gambling entities in the Philippines target Chinese citizens as their primary customers. A large number of Chinese citizens have been illegally recruited and hired in the Philippine gambling industry. In many cases, the employers of Philippine casinos, POGOs and other forms of gambling entities do not apply necessary legal work permits for their Chinese employees. Some Chinese citizens are even lured into and cheated to work illegally with only tourist visas.

IV. The fact that the Philippine casinos and POGOs and other forms of gambling entities are targeting Chinese customers has severely affected the Chinese side in the following aspects:

First, huge amount of Chinese funds has illegally flown out of China and illegally into the Philippines, involving crimes such as cross-border money laundering through underground banking, which undermines China’s financial supervision and financial security. A conservative estimate shows that gambling-related funds flowing illegally out China and into the Philippines amounts to hundreds of millions of Chinese Yuan (Renminbi) every year. There are analysts who believe that part of the illegal gambling funds has flown into local real estate markets and and other sectors in the Philippines.

Second, the fact that a large number of Chinese citizens are lured into illegal gambling has resulted in an increase of crimes and social problems in China. In particular, some gambling crimes and telecom frauds are closely connected, which has caused huge losses to the victims and their families.

Third, many of the Chinese citizens working illegally in Philippine casinos or POGOs and other forms of gambling entities are subjected to what media described as “modern slavery” due to severe limitation of their personal freedom. Their passports are taken away or confiscated by the Philippine employers. They are confined to live and work in certain designated places and some of them have been subjected to extortion, physical abuse and torture as well as other ill-treatments. At the same time, dozens of kidnappings and torture cases of Chinese citizens who gamble or work illegally in gambling entities in the Philippines have taken place. Some Chinese citizens were physically tortured, injured or even murdered.

V. The Chinese Government attaches great importance to the crackdown on cross-border gambling activities. The Ministry of Public Security of China has taken many actions and will  carry out more special operations aimed at preventing and combating the cross-border gambling. China will focus on investigating and cracking some major cases, including those of organizing gambling overseas and opening online gaming, and will destroy networks of criminal organizations involved in recruiting gamblers from China by overseas casinos and using the Internet to open casinos in China. China will also crack down on “underground banks” and online payment platforms that provide a financial settlement for cross-border gambling and other crimes, and wipe out domestic network operators and companies that provide technical support for such crimes.

VI. The Judicial Interpretation of the Relevant Laws on the Application of Online-gambling Crimes jointly issued by China’s Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate clearly stipulates that Chinese citizens gambling overseas, opening casinos to attract Chinese citizens as primary customers may constitute gambling crimes. Criminal liability can be pursued in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Law of China. The Chinese Embassy solemnly warned that relevant Chinese companies or individuals in the Philippines immediately stop relevant illegal activities, otherwise they will be punished in accordance with Chinese law.

VII. The Chinese side hopes and urges relevant departments of the Philippine Government to pay more attention to China’s position and concerns and take concrete and effective measures to prevent and punish the Philippine casinos, POGOs and other forms of gambling entities for their illegal employment of Chinese citizens and crack down on related crimes that hurt the Chinese citizens.

The Chinese side also urges relevant departments of the Philippine Government to strengthen law enforcement cooperation with China to jointly combating gambling-related crimes such as money-laundering, illegal employment, kidnapping, extortion, torture, murder etc so as to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens, and to promote China-Philippine friendship and cooperation.

COMMENTS

elevateddiscourse • a day ago • edited
I’ve a suggestion for the Chinese ambassador. Why don’t you talk to your government and make sure that they prevent online access by Chinese mainlanders to these gaming sites? If there can be no demand for online gaming sites, then these online gaming sites will die a natural death. In turn, there will be no demand for Chinese workers in these gaming enterprises, and money outflow from China will be minimized. The beauty of this suggestion is that everything will be under the full control of the Chinese government, with no dependence on the Philippine government.

asul123 • a day ago
China has a point. And it should exercise the same decorum with regards the WPS.

TGM _ERICK • 2 days ago • edited
OMG it seems that we Filipinos are abetors of crimes and
even worse some are criminal themselves. Hahaha
We are so unlike the Chinese leaders. They are si protective of the citizens. Here our leaders just so they could get back to power, THey wOuld even go to the sxtent of maligning their political enemies. Our cpredident was a victim of such.

The bay of our discontent

Antonio Contreras

THE members of the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives drew the ire of many when they filed a resolution asking the Duterte administration to suspend the rehabilitation of Manila Bay. Cited as the main reason is that the rehabilitation is only a pretext for eventual massive reclamation projects which, they said, will benefit Dennis Uy — who in a Senate hearing admitted to being a personal friend of the President — even as it will displace thousands of poor informal settlers. In response, Malacañang through presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo defended the planned reclamation project by citing its economic benefits and the jobs that it will generate.

Malacañang and the Makabayan bloc are both missing the point.

Read on…

RCBC money laundering scandal

Lala Rimando

5 things I learned in Day 3 Senate probe on the US$81 million (~Php3.8 billion) money laundering scandal

1. Brave casino vs. play-safe bank

It appears Solaire has defied the popular claim that casinos are the “blackhole” in anti-money laundering efforts. Solaire’s Atty Benny Tan told the senators that as soon as their attention was called that some of the millions-dollar-worth stolen Bangladesh funds found their way into their casino gaming tables, the company officials acted quickly.

“We have frozen the P107,350,602 balance in their chips. We have also confiscated various denominations of cash in their rooms amounting to P1,347,069,” Tan said mid-way into the 5-hour long Senate hearing on March 29, 2016.

Senators Serge Osmeña and Teofisto Guingona III were pleasantly surprised and commended the Ricky Razon-controlled Bloomberry Resorts, the owner and operator of Solaire casino.

This came after the senators, particularly Osmeña and Guingona, got exasperated after grilling the RCBC top officials over the same issue. RCBC president Lorenzo Tan and legal chief Macel Estavillo who insisted they cannot just unilaterally freeze their clients’ bank accounts without a court order. (A court order did come weeks after but by then, the $81 million funds have long been withdrawn.)

Anti-money laundering officials have long complained that casinos should be among those institutions covered since officials said they become blind once the illegal funds enter the casino system. Banks and remittance firms, on the other hand, are covered and subjected to intense regulation…yet the dirty money was successfully laundered thru these two.

2. Junket agents play major role in cleaning or washing illegal funds via casinos

I loved it that details of how the different roles in a casino business are played were discussed at the hearing. I’ve always believed that casinos have to be a willing participant to pull off a heist. Apparently not. Junket agents are key.

Junket agents are the ones who bring in the foreigner high-rollers to, in this case, Manila casinos. Two casinos were used: High-end Solaire and the modest Midas Hotel and Casino, both in Manila City. Macau agents are an easy prey (or willing heist participants) since business in that island is dying.

Junket agents earn from commission whether the gambler wins or loses (rules depend per casino). Agents can monitor how their players are doing via the “dead chips,” or those plastic round chips that they get pieces of after paying for their equivalent in cash (or via credit line from junket operator) at the casino counter.

These are “dead” since there are rules on how they can encash it. Winning chips are easily encashable, but the dead chips, which is in effect the player’s capital, cannot be encashed immediately. In Solaire, the agents have a “rule” that the dead chips can only be cashed in after they have been “rolled” (used for gambling) at least 6 times. The agents can monitor that thru the casino’s digital records of the activity of the chips.

But Sen. Osmeña said the agents—not the casinos—can change that “rule” and just allow the player to cash the chips even if the player hasn’t played 6x yet. That way, that player, assuming he is in on the heist, can more easily “wash” the dirty, illegal money and off he goes with the cash.

In this case of a heist, it does seem that the junket agents have to be working closely also with the junket operators. The latter are businessmen who usually advance money or extend credit to high rollers, as well as provide the hotel rooms, logistics of going to the Manila casinos from, say Macau, and the VIP rooms where the private gambling away from the prying eyes of mere mortals happens (no, we’re not talking about baccarat or some lowly gambling machines here. Those are for the masses.) VIP rooms are only for gamblers who play with a minimum of P25,000 to maximum of P1.5 million bets each game, at least in Solaire. Consider these “services” that the junket operators provide as insurance and, well, convenience.

3. Connecting the dots: Who knows who

Some names mentioned: Wei Kang Xu is an agent, as well as Dingxi Zi from Macau. Kim Wong, who was present at the Senate hearing, is a junket operator.

One of Wong’s clients is Shuhua Gao, who owes Wong P450 million after a series of loses in Solaire. Gao was going to sell his land in Beijing to pay Wong, but Gao reportedly said he needed to open a dollar bank account in Manila to course the funds from Beijing. Wong, who has been pestered by RCBC branch manager Deguito for business, referred Gao to the aggressive bank manager. The three–Wong, Gao and Deguito—met at Wong’s office at Midas Hotel in May 2015, and the RCBC branch manager suggested Gao opens a corporate account instead of an individual account. A corporate account needs 5 individuals. (Note: So far, there seems to be no corporate account opened.) Wong said Deguito promised to “take care” of the account opening. The 5 individuals in that account opening exercise turns out to be all fake, the RCBC and Anti-Money Laundering Council would later discover, citing IDs used in what was supposed to be the most basic part of the required know-your-client bank process.

Meantime, Gao, who has referred about 18 players to Solaire already, introduced Wei Kang Xu and Dingxi Zi who are supposedly planning to invest in the Philippines. They alerted Wong and Deguito that a large amount is coming soon. Indeed, in early February, a series of inward remittances to those fake accounts would receive a total of $81 million. Wong said he was not surprised but that only required that all the funds are used to play in the casinos, Solaire and Midas.

4. Where the $81 million funds went

What we know so far:
The $81 million that reached the RCBC bank accounts in the bank’s Jupiter branch where the manager is Deguito were sent to remittance firm Philrem owned by couple Michael and Salud Bautista to be converted from dollars into pesos. Philrem coursed the convertion thru RCBC’s Treasury via its bank account in another branch (not in Jupiter branch).

This means the illegal funds entered the RCBC system twice: as an inward remittance from the New York account of Bangladesh central bank, and as a forex transaction by Philrem, a 3rd party.

Of the $81 million, $63 million went thru Solaire and Midas. Here’s a breakdown based on Wong’s account:
>> $29 million went to Solaire.
>> $21 million went to Midas.
>> Php400 million and $5 million via Kim Wong.

The balance of $17 million remains unaccounted for. Wong said Philrem still has the amount, but the Bautista couple said they delivered everything to the Chinese group (Xu, Zi and Gao) in Solaire.

Unfortunately, there are no more CCTV footages of this “delivery” since Solaire keeps them only for 14 days, as required by Pagcor.

Wong says he has in his possession some $4.63 million due him as the “bangka” when his players lose while gambling in the casino.

5. The P1 billion threshhold

RCBC says the head office gets a trigger if some P1 billion funds go thru their system (as a deposit or withdrawal), prompting an elevation of any transaction, suspicious or not, to the more senior officials. But the frontline officials have their own discretion and may use their instinct when dealing with these big amounts.

Lorenzo Tan and Atty Macel Estavillo stuck to their message: the rogue branch manager made bad judgement calls.

jueteng’s wild 2

i agree with conrado de quiros.   the only way to deal with jueteng is is to legalize it.

i know, i know, many of you out there believe that jueteng is bad, it’s immoral, the poor waste their time and money on games of luck when they could be making sariling sikap (yeah likeplanting kamote) to lift themselves from poverty, and besides most jueteng profits fund patronage politics, so jueteng contributes to corruption big time, every greedy one is on the take, be it mayor or governor, police or military, congressman or senator, or president even, as we all know firsthand from erap’s impeachment trial, and what about the jose pidal senate hearings, buking na buking, the huge bribes can make it all the way to the top, grabe, so let’s do away with jueteng, yada yada….

but that’s the line mismo of the notorious anti-jueteng archbishop oscar cruz, the same archbishop cruz who condemns not just artificial contraception but even natural family planning (that advises against sex during ovulation) because it’s “inimical to the health.”   ano daw?   so he’s all for women having sex during ovulation, never mind if they can’t afford big families?   why do we listen to him at all?

the archbishop likes to say that jueteng draws are rigged, the poor are being cheated, walang yumayaman kundi ang jueteng lords and their bribees. well, that’s not the fault of the poor who play, di ba?  and this is where nga legalizing it would benefit the poor.  legalizing means regulating means minimizing the cheating.  meanwhile, malamang nga na some if not most draws are rigged, but i would think it’s more the exception than the rule, because the poor are not dumb, they have their own intelligence networks, and they wouldn’t continue to play if they never win or don’t win reasonably often enough.

also the archbishop speaks against gambling as if it were a sin.   meron na bang 11th commandment na thou shalt not gamble?   thou shalt not play games of luck?   but why?   where’s the harm?   not everyone likes to gamble but that doesn’t make it harmful for those who do.   all the negatives attached to gambling — such as losing money that could feed clothe and shelter family or driving one to steal or sell drugs to get the money to gamble — are extremes: why penalize all for the sins of a few?

twisted, di ba.   and why blame the poor, why penalize the poor, for the corruption of the jueteng lords and of the government officials who protect them?  why even think of depriving the poor of jueteng, the one game of luck they can afford to play and be thrilled by (one peso can win seven hundred, home service pa) that along with sex and alcohol make their miserable lives bearable, when the problem lies not with them but with the jueteng lords and their corrupt connections in government?

let’s face it, except temporarily and only in small areas at a time, there’s no wiping out jueteng.    the challenge is how to legalize it so that a reasonable share of the profits go not into the pockets of crooked officials but are plowed back instead to pump-prime the economy and uplift the well-being of conditions of poor communities.   what would it take?   well, certainly not a government that’s intimidated by men in skirts.