Website focused on Macau gaming closes

CasinoLeaks-Macau.com, the website sponsored by a Las Vegas union that promised to release information on organized crime in Macau’s gaming industry, has shut down.

“CasinoLeaks-Macu.com is shutting down. Thank you for your interest,” a statement posted on its website reads.

Messages left with Jeffery Fiedler, director of special projects and initiatives for the International Union of Operating Engineers, to find out why the website was shut down were not returned.

The IUOE launched the website in February, calling on Nevada gaming regulators to investigate the profitable business relationship between Las Vegas-based casino companies and junket operators in Macau.

The union had posted “600 pages of supporting documents” to highlight what it alleged were ties between VIP room operators linked to organized crime and widely known casino brands, including Las Vegas Sands Corp.

Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts Ltd. all operate casinos in Macau.

“Obviously we are not disappointed to see this site and its misrepresentation of the truth taken down,” said Gordon Absher, a spokesman with MGM Resorts. A Las Vegas Sands spokesman was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

The IUOE claims 1,000 members working in Nevada casinos. In an interview in March, Fielder said one of his group’s primary concerns is the “significant difference” in how Nevada and Macau define suitability in practice.

Fielder wrote that he thinks Macau authorities are uninterested in “pursuing triad influence and involvement in the territory, and Nevada appears either unwilling or unable to perform the enforcement functions that have given it a reputation as a strict gaming regulator.”

The website also featured essays and profiles on major VIP room and junket operators and about VIP gaming in Macau. Fiedler is a former four-term member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Contact reporter Chris Sieroty at csieroty@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893.