10 Crown Resorts staff released from detention
Print Edition
CHINA released 10 employees of Australian casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd yesterday, including two Australian citizens, the first of 16 who were detained in October and sentenced in June for illegally promoting gambling.
Nineteen employees were detained as Crown tried to attract high-spending Chinese to its casinos outside China, where gambling and gambling promotions are illegal except in Macau.
A court jailed 16 of the employees including three Australians for nine to 10 months, back-dated to their October detention.
Chinese law mandates sentences of up to three years in prison for anyone who “for the purpose of profit, gathers people to engage in gambling, runs a gambling house or makes gambling his profession.”
However, foreign casinos have skirted the ban by packaging gambling excursions as destination vacations to Australia and elsewhere. Those have become particularly attractive under China’s ongoing corruption crackdown that has deterred many gamblers from traveling to Macau.
That prompted Crown to shift focus to its home market. It had been a shareholder of Macau-focused Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd but sold its stake in May for US$1.16 billion.
Yesterday, four employees, including Australian nationals Jerry Xuan and Jane Pan Dan, emerged from a Shanghai detention facility accompanied by family members and security officials. They didn’t speak to reporters.
Another six were released from a separate facility in the city, said a man who declined to give his name but said he was a lawyer for the families.
A relative of one of the released defendants, who requested anonymity, said: “Everything went OK.”
“We want to see what the company does next ... and how it treats those involved,” the relative said.
Jason O’Connor, Crown’s head of international VIP gambling, will be released on August 12 along with three other employees, the relative said citing a court copy of the verdict.
Australian officials confirmed yesterday’s release of two of its citizens.
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