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SCMP Reporter

A Shenzhen court has jailed two Hong Kong men for two years for luring a vice-mayor of Shaoguan city  to gamble in Macau.

The  men were sentenced by Lowu District Court, the Shenzhen Fa Zhi Bao reported.

The report said they had not indicated they would appeal against the relatively light sentence.

They were accused of teaming up with a mainlander  to trick the vice-mayor into a card game at a Macau hotel in April 2003.

The report said the vice-mayor  lost 1.59 million yuan in the game.

The gang forced him to sign an IOU note and used his bank card to withdraw 60,000 yuan from a teller machine.

They also forced him to telephone a friend in Guangzhou, who remitted 200,000 yuan to a bank in  Lowu.

According to the report, the gang was picked up by police when members went to Shaoguan to demand that the vice-mayor pay his gambling debts.

They were initially charged with fraud but the case was later transferred to Shenzhen, where they were put on trial for the gambling offence.

A report in the Beijing News yesterday said that when  the vice-mayor was in Macau he was treated by the gang to a strip show, an expensive sauna  and sexual services from a Russian prostitute.

'One of the accused  has claimed that altogether they spent  $8,000 to entertain  the vice-mayor,' the report said. 'And prosecutors have confirmed that he had used the services of the prostitute.'

A Beijing lawyer said yesterday  that under mainland law, the Shenzhen court had jurisdiction over the case even though the gambling offences were committed in Macau.

'The mainland criminal-determining procedure is based on the territorial principal,' said Liang Chao, 'so Shenzhen Lowu - where they [the gang] withdrew the money - could be regarded as one of the main places where the crime was committed.'

While the three men who duped him have all ended up behind bars, the vice-mayor has  been neither charged nor prosecuted, the reports alleged.

The 49-year-old, from Jiangxi province, has, however, apparently been relieved of his duties as vice-mayor and transferred to a new post in Guangzhou.



Cards-scam trio jailed for luring vice-mayor