Probe of Adelson

Group asks for probe of Adelson contributions

The donor's spokesman calls it a 'political stunt.'

By  Isaac Arnsdorf

In what a spokesman for Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson called a "political stunt," a watchdog group is asking federal officials to investigate the casino tycoon's alleged ties to organized crime in China.

Ron Reese, a spokesman for Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corp., said the allegations about the company's Macau operations have been heard and repudiated before. But today, the Campaign for Accountability is asking the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Federal Election Commission to get to the bottom of them.

“Given the extent to which Mr. Adelson’s wealth derives from Macau and his dominant role in funding Republican candidates, it seems highly likely that illegal foreign money has made its way into American elections,” Anne Weismann, the Campaign for Accountability’s executive director said in a statement. "If triad money is winding up in the campaign coffers of U.S. politicians through Mr. Adelson’s contributions, the American people deserve to know it.”

"Clearly the political silly season has started and this is an obvious political stunt," Reese said.

Macau casinos rely on high rollers brought in on junkets organized by Chinese companies that take a cut and allegedly have ties to organized crime, according to the Campaign for Accountability's complaint. According to internal documents the Campaign for Accountability submitted, Adelson’s Venetian Macau had one such agreement financed by Cheung Chi Tai, . (The documents surfaced in a wrongful-termination lawsuit by a former Sands executive in Macau.) Cheung was identified in a 1993 Senate report as a leader of a Chinese organized crime gang called the Who Hop To Triad.

After a Reuters investigation revealed Las Vegas Sands’ partnership with Cheung in 2010, the company said it ended the relationship. Yet Las Vegas Sands still does business with a company in which Cheung is one of the biggest shareholders, according to the complaint.

Adelson also has business ties to Ng Lap Seng, described in a ompany-commissioned report as an alleged Macau crime figure. According to the FEC complaint, Ng was a “confidential messenger” between Adelson and Leonel Alves, a Macau legislator whose law firm Adelson hired despite legal advice that Alves’ excessive fees could violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Ng was an associate of Alves, but Adelson said in testimony earlier this year he never met him. The company continues to cooperate with the FCPA investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Reese said.

Ng was arrested in New York in September, accused of lying about the purpose of millions of dollars in cash he carried across the border. He first rose to attention in the U.S. in the 1990s when he allegedly funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic National Committee through an Arkansas restaurant owner, according to the complaint. The DNC returned the money.

It’s illegal for foreigners to contribute to U.S. campaigns. As Sen. John McCain acknowledged in a 2012 PBS NewsHour interview, “much of Mr. Adelson’s casino profits that go to him come from his casino in Macau . . . which says that, obviously, maybe in a roundabout way, foreign money is coming into an American campaign.”