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Raquel Carvalho

CASINOS
In 1999, Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho Hung-sun opened a HK$233 million casino in Pyongyang next to the Communist Party headquarters. The development was built after Hong Kong’s Emperor Group chairman, Albert Yeung Sau-shing, received an exclusive casino licence to operate in North Korea in 1996, which he sold in part to Ho.
SADDAM HUSSEIN
A few days before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Pyongyang offered asylum to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein saying it would give him and his family a mountain to live on. The unexpected intermediary was Macau casino magnate Stanley Ho.
Why does everybody assume Kim Jong-un killed his brother?
North Korean senior officials “told me there really was a chance to prevent a war, and said Saddam Hussein could step down two days before the US and Britain started to bomb and he could call democratic elections,” Ho said. A source said Kim Jong-nam was friends with Hussein’s two sons, who were killed in a battle that year. Hussein, who did not take North Korea’s offer, was executed in 2006.
A STRANGE DEATH
The death of a Macau customs chief in 2015 has inspired several theories; one that gained traction involves North Korea. Lai Man-wa was found in a public toilet with her head covered with a plastic bag, slashes to her wrists and neck, sleeping pills and a razor blade in her handbag.
What a mysterious death tells you about the future of Macau
The police ruled out homicide, but some speculate her death was linked to a seizure of valuable – and protected – agarwood at the airport. North Korea was trying to sell the wood on the international market, so the theory goes, and reacted violently to its seizure. ■


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North Korea

Three strange links between Macau, North Korea: from Saddam Hussein to customs chief’s death

Casino deals, asylum offer for the Iraqi dictator and an unexplained demise

The Macau skyline. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was offered asylum by North Korea just before the US invasion in 2003. The intermediary was a Macau casino magnate. Photo: AFP

How Macau became North Korea’s window to the world... and its nexus for weapons and drugs trafficking

The assassination of Kim Jong-nam put a spotlight on the Chinese city he lived in – but Pyongyang’s links to the former Portuguese colony stretch much further back, into a murky and sordid past

Photo: AFP

Han Myong-chol, vice general managing director of Zokwang Trading Company, at North Korea's representative office in Macau.

FILE - In this March 11, 2009 file photo, former North Korean spy Kim Hyon-hui attends a news conference with relatives of Yaeko Taguchi who was abducted by North Korea decades ago, in Busan, South Korea. Kim who blew up a South Korean jetliner more than 20 years ago arrived in Japan Tuesday, July 20, 2010 to meet the families of Japanese kidnapped by the reclusive regime, including Taguchi she says coached her on Japanese culture to be a spy. (AP Photo/Kim Kyung-hoon, Pool, File)

Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong (L) and Indonesian Siti Aishah are seen in this combination picture from undated handouts released by the Royal Malaysia Police to Reuters on February 19, 2017. Malaysia on March 1, 2017 charged both women with the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader. Royal Malaysia Police/Handout via Reuters/File Photo ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT WAS PROCESSED BY REUTERS TO ENHANCE QUALITY. UNPROCESSED VERSIONS HAVE BEEN PROVIDED SEPARATELY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVE.

** FILE ** A man talks on a mobile phone in front of the headquarter of Banco Delta Asia in Macau, in this Friday, March 16, 2007 file photo. More than US$20 million (euro15.05 million) in disputed North Korean funds was transferred from a blacklisted Macau bank Thursday, June 14, 2007, an official said, possibly clearing the way for the North to start shutting down its nuclear reactor. The money dispute has dragged on for nearly two years between Pyongyang and Washington, which accused the bank of helping the North launder money. The funds were frozen in the troubled lender, Banco Delta Asia, prompting the North to storm out of talks to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, FILE)

JAPAN OUT NO INTERNET NO SALES NO BROADCASTING (FILES) Picture dated 30 January 2007 and taken by Japan's newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, shows Kim Jong-Nam, 35, eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il smiling in southern China's casino haven of Macau. The eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il said he opposes the hereditary transfer of power to his brother in the communist state, in an interview with Japan's TV Asahi broadcast on October 12, 2010. "Personally I am opposed to the hereditary transfer to a third generation of the family," Kim Jong-Nam said, speaking in Korean with the Asahi TV Network in an interview conducted in Beijing on October 9. AFP PHOTO / YOMIURI SHIMBUN / AFP PHOTO / YOMIURI SHIMBUN / YOMIURI SHIMBUN

Kim Jong-Nam dressed in an army uniform poses with his maternal grandmother in January 1975 in an unknown place. Kim Jong-Nam is believed to be the eldest son of reclusive North Jorean leader Kim Jong-Il. AFP PHOTO / AFP PHOTO

Aurora Italian Restaurant Altira in Taipa, Macau 18APR17 SCMP / Xiaomei Chen

King Jun-Nam's home in Macau 18APR17 SCMP / Xiaomei Chen

The cover of a Chinese magazine features a portrait of Kim Jong Nam, the late half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, at a news agent in Beijing, China February 27, 2017. The headline reads: "Stranger than fiction assassination diary." REUTERS/Thomas Peter FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

Zokwang Trading Company, located on the fifth floor of residential building Chun Siu Garden on Avenida de Sidonio Pais, Macau.

Thai villager Sukham Panjoy, 59, shows a portrait of his sister Anocha Panjoy at San Kamphaeng district in Chiang Mai province, north of Bangkok November 10, 2005. Panjoy and local media reported that Anocha was abducted by North Korean agents in Macau 27 years ago. The memoirs of former U.S. army deserter, Charles Robert Jenkins, say that after her abduction Anocha was forced to marry another U.S. deserter in North Korea, where she still lives. At right is Teruaki Masumoto, Secretary General for the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea. REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang

epa05793929 An undated photo taken in 2010 shows Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at a restaurant in Macau, China. A press statement released by the Malaysian police on 14 February 2017, said a 46-year-old North Korean named Kim Chol died the previous day on his way to a hospital from a Malaysia International Airport service counter where he sought initial medical treatment. Reports said Kim Chol, an alias used by Kim Jong-nam, was attacked by two unidentified women with chemical sprays. The suspects fled immediately in a taxi, and Malaysian police suspect North Korea was behind the killing. EPA/YONHAP SOUTH KOREA OUT

People at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, watch a TV news program displaying a video in which a man claims to be the son of the slain half brother of North Korea's leader Wednesday, March 8, 2017. The South Korean National Intelligence Service determined the man in the video is Kim Han Sol, whose father, Kim Jong Nam, was killed at an airport in Malaysia last month. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

The Macau skyline seen from the restaurant Aurora. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Mystery of the North Koreans who left Macau for Zhuhai ... where are they now?

A North Korean waitress at a restaurant in Dandong, China. North Korean restaurants overseas are a vital source of foreign money for Pyongyang. Photo: AFP

Life Circle Housekeeping Service Centre, the first shop on the right in the photo) was a North Korean Restaurant for about ten years until May 2015. The chef and the waitresses were all from North Korea holding work visa. 11APR17 SCMP / Xiaomei Chen

Delta Asia Bank at Rua do Campo in Macau 18APR17 SCMP / Xiaomei Chen

Hai Wan Court, a Residential neighborhood in Xiangzhou Jida Zhuhai, China. It is believed that a few North Koreans lived there and they kept a private bank there. 11APR17 SCMP / Xiaomei Chen

Gongbei Port in Zhuhai, which borders Macau.11APR17 SCMP / Xiaomei Chen

North Korean waitresses perform their nightly entertainment routine at a restaurant in Dandong, in northeast China's Liaoning province across the Yalu River from Siniuju in North Korea on November 26, 2010. China warned against military activity in its exclusive economic zone, ahead of weekend US-South Korean exercises intended as a show of force against Beijing's ally North Korea. AFP PHOTO/Frederic J. BROWN / AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J. BROWN

JAPAN OUT NO INTERNET NO SALES NO BROADCASTING (FILES) Picture dated 30 January 2007 and taken by Japan's newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, shows Kim Jong-Nam, 35, eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il smiling in southern China's casino haven of Macau. The eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il said he opposes the hereditary transfer of power to his brother in the communist state, in an interview with Japan's TV Asahi broadcast on October 12, 2010. "Personally I am opposed to the hereditary transfer to a third generation of the family," Kim Jong-Nam said, speaking in Korean with the Asahi TV Network in an interview conducted in Beijing on October 9. AFP PHOTO / YOMIURI SHIMBUN

Three strange links between Macau, North Korea: from Saddam Hussein to customs chief’s death

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Casino deals, asylum offer for the Iraqi dictator and an unexplained demise

CASINOS

SADDAM HUSSEIN

Casino deals, asylum offer for the Iraqi dictator and an unexplained demise