Former Macau gangster ‘Broken Tooth’ signs poker deal with secretive Chinese firm after raising US$750 million in ICO
Wan Kuok-koi plans to issue one billion tokens of HB cryptocurrency, some of which will be used as prize fund in chess and poker tournament in Hainan
Former Macau triad gangster “Broken Tooth” Wan Kuok-koi has partnered with a mysterious Beijing firm to back chess and poker tournaments in mainland China, as his company said it raised US$750 million in less than five minutes in an initial coin offering for his “HB” cryptocurrency.
Wan launched the ICO at a star-studded event in Cambodia, attended by high-ranking government and military officials, businessmen and celebrities from mainland China and Hong Kong.
In total, Wan’s company, World Hung Mun Investment, said it had sold 450 million HB tokens at three events, in Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines, with a final stop scheduled in Malaysia on Wednesday.
The company’s investment document said it planned to issue a total of one billion tokens, with half of those to be offered to the public.
However, doubts remain over the currency, the provenance of the Chinese company, and the chess and poker tournaments, the first of which was slated to take place in Hainan in October, that Wan would be providing prize money for in the form of HB tokens.
Earlier this month a company called Zhonggongxin Cosmos (Beijing) Internet Technology Limited said it had signed an agreement with Wan’s investment company to work together on a chess and poker game contest in Hainan.
Zhonggongxin Cosmos is a subsidiary of Zhonggongxin Assets Management Limited, which has a variety of business interests including asset management, construction projects in Russia, and hints at being state-owned.