July 22 2019
The Regional Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Jeremy Douglas, told MNA that Macau’s gaming sector still remains a center for money laundering in the region, with junket operators having a considerable contribution.
In a report issued last week, a UNODC reportwarned that many criminal organisations based in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Thailand, are outpacing the ability of law enforcement to respond and were major players in meth trafficking in Southeast Asia.
These groups were said to generate profits of tens of billions of dollars each year from a rising trade in drugs, counterfeit goods and medicines, people-smuggling, and trafficking of wildlife and timber, with proceeds laundered through poorly regulated casinos or through the formal banking system in Singapore and Hong Kong.
