Casino executives in Macau have boosted their personal security after one of the city's most colourful gaming bosses was maimed in a vicious gang attack and three casino customers were murdered in the space of two weeks.
The violence has led to concerns of a return to the dark days of the late 1990s as the city's gambling industry faces its first real cash squeeze since liberalisation 10 years ago.
Ng Man-sun, the Mong Kok wet market trader turned casino boss, who is widely known by the nickname 'Gai See Wai'' or 'Street Market Wai'', remains in a stable condition in Macau's Hospital Conde de Sao Januario under the protection of bodyguards after a brutal attack late last month by a gang of six men as he dined with a woman friend in a restaurant in the New Century Hotel on Taipa.
Ng is a major investor in the Greek Mythology Casino, which is housed in the hotel and operates under Stanley Ho Hung-sun's SJM concession.
Gaming insiders said that the attackers deliberately severed the tendons on Ng's arms and legs to cause permanent damage, and security experts say the beating bore all the hallmarks of a triad attack.
It was followed by the killing of a mainland woman several days ago in a residential area minutes away from the Venetian Macau casino and came just days after two mainland men were murdered at the five-star Grand Lapa Hotel, formerly the Mandarin Oriental.
The police are not connecting the attacks but the outbreak of violence has evoked memories of the late 1990s, when the then Portuguese-run enclave was rocked by assassinations, car bombings and gangland attacks as rival gangs battled for the control of the city's highly lucrative VIP gambling rooms.