Macau’s Court of Second Instance has reduced the prison sentence of former Tak Chun Group chairman Levo Chan by 12 months to 13 years and determined he does not need to pay compensation to five of the city’s concessionaires because he was acquitted of the offence of fraud.
However, the amount owed by Chan and four other defendants directly to the Macau government has been substantially increased.
Chan was in April 2023 sentenced to 14 years in prison following a three-month long trial and ordered to pay HK$200 million (US$25 million) in damages to Wynn Macau Ltd, Sands China, SJM Resorts, Galaxy Entertainment Group and MGM China. Between he and four other defendants, the total amount of compensation to be paid came to HK$570 million (US$70.5 million).
All five defendants later filed an appeal to the Court of Second Instance.
On Thursday, the Court announced its decision that Chan and his fellow defendants were partially successful in their appeals and therefore acquitted them of the fraud charges.
The court found that the participants in “betting under the table” had acted knowingly, and the court did not consider that any of the parties involved were caught in a gambling scam, meaning there was not sufficient evidence to constitute the offence of fraud.
However, Chan remains convicted of triad offences, illegal operation of gambling and aggravated money laundering, with his sentence changed from 14 years to 13 years.
The other four defendants who appealed their convictions were sentenced to between seven years and 10 years each.
As the fraud charges were not upheld, the court confirmed that Chan and the other four defendants would not be required to pay compensation to the five concessionaires, but would be required to pay compensation of approximately HK$2.5 billion (US$310 million) to the Macau SAR Government.
The case mirrors that of former Suncity Group Chairman Alvin Chau, who in October had his fraud charges dropped but also saw the amount of compensation to be paid directly to the government tripled to HK$25 billion (US$3.2 billion). Chau’s 18 year prison sentence remained unchanged.
