Ambrose So, who is the CEO of Macau’s oldest gaming operator SJM, testified at the trial of Alan Ho, a nephew of SJM’s founder and former gambling kingpin Stanley Ho. The younger Ho is accused of running a prostitution ring at the city’s landmark Lisboa casino and hotel.
Called upon to defend Ho, So described him as “just and honest”, hard working and competent in his work as the hotel’s executive director at the time of alleged offences. He said Ho’s personality was like that of non-Chinese in being direct and straightforward, and added that he had never heard Stanley Ho complain about his nephew. After another defense witness said Ho had ordered an investigation after women complained to the hotel that they were being charged for access to “working rooms” there, the public prosecutor asked So if Ho had intervened. So said he believed Ho would take measures to maintain the hotel’s propriety, but added that he was not sure if Ho had implemented any such measures.
According to the prosecution, Ho led an operation that occupied the bedrooms of two whole floors of the hotel, employed 2,400 sex workers and took in US$50 million over two years. Macau police say it was the largest to be uncovered in the city since 1999, with 96 prostitutes found when the hotel was raided. Nearly all were from mainland China, and some said they paid 150,000 yuan (US$23,000) per year to parade in the property’s shopping mall before taking clients to their upstairs room.
The casino at the Lisboa property was the centerpiece of the gambling empire of Stanley Ho, who held the gaming monopoly in Macau for 40 years until 2002, making him the most powerful man in the city and one of the richest in Asia. While the elder Ho at 94 now takes a back seat, his fourth wife Angela Leong is the largest individual stakeholder in SJM. Two of his children each hold a substantial stake in one of the city’s five other gaming concessions. Given the clan’s standing, the very public arrest of Alan Ho, along with six other defendants in January last year was remarkable.
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