Welcome to ‘Satan’s Palace’ - The Casino From Hell

6 years ago
Welcome to ‘Satan’s Palace’ - The Casino From Hell
15:50
21 Feb

Unexplained deaths, horrendous injuries, nepotism, kickbacks and the involvement of Donald Trump’s former casino guru are just some of the claims made this week in a damning investigative report on the $multi-billion, mega-casino being built on the US commonwealth paradise island of Saipan – the Imperial Pacific casino nicknamed ‘Satan’s Palace’ by enraged locals.


In one of the finest – and most disturbing – pieces of investigative journalism the industry has seen in many years, Matthew Campbell has laid bare an incredibly intricate web of how Chinese gambling operators have used mainland US politicians and the local governor and his extended family to flout health and safety, financial and gaming regulations – all ostensibly controlled by the US.


The litany of serious problems which Campbell alleges include:

  • So many labourers (a lot of them illegally-hired Chinese workers) getting injured that a local doctor and his colleagues “began keeping an unofficial spreadsheet, separate from standard hospital records: a grim catalog of broken bones, lacerations, puncture wounds, dislocated limbs, and eyes penetrated by flying metal”.
  •  So much money being routed through the casino that one of the executives and analysts with vast experience of the Asian market interviewed ‘burst out laughing’ at the idea it could have been legitimately earned…


  • Buying off or ignoring all those who have a say in how the company operates or have raised concerns, with “millions of dollars in payments to family members of the territory’s governor, Ralph Deleon Guerrero Torres Campbell” and the “advisers and board of directors have included former directors of the CIA and FBI and former governors of Mississippi, New York, and Pennsylvania.”

Most readers will likely have to google Saipan, a glorious chunk of mountains and beaches in the Western Pacific. Campbell states early in his piece:

“To get a sense of Saipan’s isolation from the Lower 48, imagine flying from Denver to Honolulu. Then fly that far again. Then go farther still. Saipan (population 48,000) is nevertheless American soil, with U.S. dollars, U.S. mail, and U.S. laws. But the place has seemed less and less like America since 2014, when a Chinese casino operator arrived and—with near-total impunity—turned Saipan into a back door to the U.S. financial system.” 


Even before opening its megacasino, the Imperial Pacific “turned over nearly six times more cash than the fanciest gaming facilities in Macau, which themselves dwarf the activity in Las Vegas”

The development of the megacasino – which is still unfinished despite being open to the hundreds and thousands of VIP highrollers from the Chinese mainland looking for new pastures after a Chinese government crackdown on Macau and related ventures – needed people who were connected.

They hired Mark Brown, “an Atlantic City native who’d run Donald Trump’s casino empire” and Chinese banker Shen Yan, “who had suffered an alarming career setback in 2011 — he was arrested at Hong Kong International Airport for carrying a gun in his backpack — but he had connections, including to David Paterson, the blind former governor of New York.”


It’s a deep and tangled picture of deceit and criminality which Campbell paints, reporting which can’t be done justice on these pages, so check it out in full for yourselves here.


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Andrew from Edinburgh, Scotland, is a professional journalist, international-titled chess master, and avid poker player.Read more

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