Alvin Chau is Sentenced to 18 Years in Prison
Macau casino operator, Alvin Chau (周焯華), 48, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for running illegal cross-border gambling operations during a trial hearing yesterday. The former CEO of Suncity Group was charged with 162 counts, including founding and directing a criminal group. Not taking into account any sentence commutation, he will be 66 years old by the time he is released from prison.
According to Macau’s laws, inmates are unable to apply holidays to their sentence time and must serve in its entirety. They can apply for early release after serving two-thirds of their sentence as long as the application is approved by the court. Based on Alvin’s sentence, he will be eligible to apply after 12 years.
Life in Macau Prison
Macau Prison is Macau’s only prison. After many expansions, it now houses up to 1300 inmates. Former Secretary of Transport and Public Works of Macau, Ao Man Long (歐文龍), and infamous gangster Wan Kuok Koi (尹國駒) both served their sentences there.
Based on Macau Judicial Police’s short video on life in Macau Prison, inmates undergo a security inspection including a body cavity search within their first 72 hours. They are required to relinquish all personal belongings for safekeeping by the prison. They will live in the newcomer area for one to two days in order to acclimatize. Afterwards, a doctor will conduct a physical exam and the inmates will be assigned to different cells depending on their sentence time, severity of offence, and mental state. Most cells house four to five people; if the inmate is famous then they may be assigned a solitary cell.
Although inmates lose their freedom, they are still able to enjoy the same rights and services such as voting and education. They are taken out to an open-air exercise area twice per day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon. The prison does not mandate inmates to work, but they may perform optional jobs in carpentry, printing, clothing manufacturing, laundry, or baking bread. Their products will not be used for commercial purposes, and will only be used within the prison or by other government entities.
Every inmate is allowed visitation once per week, and can only see two people at most for an hour. The visitation list must be submitted before the inmate arrives to the prison. They are also allowed to make phone calls but will need to apply for approval. If approved, the call must be monitored by guards and the phone numbers will be recorded.
Source: [1]
This article is written by Kiki for JayneStars.com.
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I guess not so scary if he’s able to get solitary confinement. the scariest part is having to share a room w/ someone in a prison cell who has similar sentencing w/ you if you have a heavy sentence.
18yrs…wow. PRC comes down hard on him and rightly so… I wonder if Heidi will finally divorce him now? Mandy is fortunate to have enough money to care for herself and kids in UK.
I never expected this guy to fall 5yrs ago…. But this sentence is fair for his crimes.
Wow his sentence is even longer than Kris Wu. No one expect China to be so hard to those commit crime or wrongdoings to be punished or canceled so serious, which is good to avoid the ppl abuse their power, wealth and fame. In recent years many celebrities etc who do not “behaved” are punished or canceled
He should have quit while he was ahead. I do believe his supporters went out of favor with Xi, thus they targeted him. I am sure other Macau syndicates are doing the same thing. Note that he wasn’t found guilty of money laundering because it would have involved thousands of extremely high level CCP officials with the possibility of exposing their identities. Those officials used gambling as an excuse to export their ill gotten gains out of China.
More interested to know if there is more saga between his wife and mistress.
Congratulations ti him for 18 years in prison… May he will build a Caniso there with few mistress (few boys there)…
Over indulgence will eventually lead to self- destruction. I wonder how his transfer of wealth and assets would play out between his wife and his mistress. His mistress was fortunate and shrewd to end their controversial relationship for an astonishing breakup fees before his downfall.
I guess there’s no rich people’s prison like in America and he will need to slum it.
Not just America, South Korea, Japan and I bet others have them too. Those without will declare they are very ill and get admitted to High End Private hospital to recuperate.
He has connections to the notorious Burning Sun nightclub owners in S Korea. No coincidence his company is named SunCity
Oh really! Interesting….