\nWith some of the world\u2019s top poker players in the courtroom, a federal magistrate Thursday ordered the release on bail of three key defendants arrested in an alleged World Cup betting scheme.<\/p>\n
\tMalaysian junketeer Seng Chen \u201cRichard\u201d Yong, 56, was ordered freed on $1.5 million bail and his son, Wai Kin Yong, 22, was to be released on $500,000 bail. The third defendant, Hong Kong real estate executive Hui Tang, 44, was ordered released on a $1.5 million bond.<\/p>\n
\tProfessional poker star Phil Ivey, who was in court, agreed to post $500,000 of Richard Yong\u2019s bail and the entire bond for the younger Yong.<\/p>\n
\tAfterward, Ivey, a 10-time World Series of Poker champion who lives in Las Vegas, said he stepped forward because the Yongs are personal friends.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI have the utmost respect and trust for them,\u201d Ivey said.<\/p>\n
\tDan Cates, another big-name poker player, agreed to post the remaining $1 million for Richard Yong, who is known for his lucrative casino junket business in Asia and his presence on the poker circuit.<\/p>\n
\tIvey and another professional poker icon, Andrew Robl, previously posted $2.5 million in bail for two other key defendants \u2014 Malaysian businessman Wei Seng \u201cPaul\u201d Phu, 50, and his son Darren Wai Kit Phua, 22.<\/p>\n
\tFBI agents believe Paul Phua, a frequent poker player in Las Vegas and Macau, was the ringleader of the multimillion-dollar betting operation, which is alleged to have taken illegal bets on the World Cup soccer tournament in Brazil.<\/p>\n
\tIn a criminal complaint filed in Las Vegas, agents alleged Phua is \u201cknown by law enforcement to be a high-ranking member of the 14K Triad,\u201d one of the largest criminal syndicates in the world. His lawyer, David Chesnoff, denies the organized crime ties.<\/p>\n
\tTwo more poker stalwarts, Gabe Patgorski and Tom Dwan, agreed to allow the Yongs and Tang, respectively, to stay at their homes in their custody. Dwan said he shares Ivey\u2019s respect for the defendants.<\/p>\n
\tU.S. Magistrate Judge Bill Hoffman put several restrictions on the three defendants, including electronic monitoring, no gambling and no use of devices that access the Internet.<\/p>\n
\tA Las Vegas federal grand jury this week indicted a total of eight defendants in the international betting scheme, which authorities alleged stretched to Macau. The indictment alleges the defendants ran the betting operation from June 6 through their July 13 arrest in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\tThe defendants were taken into custody days after an FBI raid at three exclusive Caesars Palace villas. The Strip resort was not a target of the investigation.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With some of the world\u2019s top poker players in the courtroom, a federal magistrate Thursday ordered the release on bail of three key defendants arrested in an alleged World Cup betting scheme. Malaysian junketeer Seng Chen \u201cRichard\u201d Yong, 56, was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}