I'm a gambler not a triad boss, Broken Tooth tells trial judge

Alleged Macau triad boss 'Broken Tooth' Wan Kuok-koi denied gang crimes yesterday as his trial got under way after months of delays.

Looking relaxed during several hours of questioning, Wan, 45, who faces a string of organised crime charges, said he was a 'businessman and high-stakes gambler'.

Speaking through an interpreter, he told Judge Fernando Estrela, drafted in from Lisbon after the resignation of the original trial judge, that he was innocent.

'I am not the leader of any triad faction and I am not a member of any triad. I don't know why I am here in court today. I am just a businessman,' Wan said.

It took Judge Estrela 14 minutes to read out the charges, which accuse Wan of admitting to police in 1995 he was the boss of a 14K triad gang, and being at the head of a highly structured criminal organisation.

He also faces counts of weapons trafficking, illicit gambling, loansharking, blackmail, unlawful detention and possession of fake identification documents.

A convoy of heavily guarded vehicles took Wan and his five co-defendants, including younger brother Wan Kuok-hung, 36, from Coloane Island Prison to Macau's Court of First Instance. The building was ringed by police, many carrying sub-machineguns.

Wan admitted a police raid on his home had uncovered a telecommunications scanner, but insisted he had not used it to listen to the police.

He said the device had been given to him by a 'fat woman who later died in a shipwreck in China'.

Prosecutors allege all six defendants have been members of the 14K since 1978.

Wan is alleged to have taken over as 14K boss in 1989 after building up a powerful band of followers who carried out loansharking, intimidation and other casino-related crimes.

Some 90 witnesses will be called and 3,000 pages of documentation put before the court, including transcripts of bugged telephone conversations.

The other four defendants in court were Chan Hac-ha, 53, Si Cheong-wan, 31, and two women, Wong Wan-wa, 35, and Lam Iok-in, 51. Four defendants will be tried in absentia.

The court heard Wan's alleged organisation ran illegal services for high-stakes gamblers and that he identified himself as the leader of a 14K triad faction in a meeting with intelligence police in 1995.

Wan and three other local triad leaders allegedly told police they planned to set up a 'Group of the Four United' (local triad gangs) to pool resources against triads from Hong Kong.

According to police intelligence reports, Wan planned to set up a weapons factory in Cambodia and to buy rockets, missiles, tanks, armoured vehicles and other heavy weaponry from international arms dealers in the mid-1990s.

The judge ordered Wan to be detained incommunicado until the end of the trial in about one month.