Three Aussie Crown staff reportedly officially arrested

Three Australian employees of gaming operator Crown Resorts have been formally arrested after being detained in China for “gaming-related crimes” over the past month, reported the country’s news outlet the Australian Financial Review.
The newspaper indicated that a fourth Australian, who does not directly work for the Australian company, is also understood to have been formally arrested, along with 13 other China-based employees of the operator.
The arrested individuals will be held in custody for at least six months while Chinese authorities finalise their case, said the news outlet, adding that details of their exact crimes would only be revealed when the case is handed over to the country’s court prosecutors.
On October 14, Chinese authorities detained 18 Crown Resort employees for “illegal gaming activities,” including the three now-formally-arrested Australians, including the company’s head of International VIP programme, Jason O’ Connor, the company’s Beijing-based director of international marketing Jerry Xuan, and a female employee named Pan Dan.
Earlier this month, the Australian-based casino operator said that one of the 18 staff arrested in China had been released from detention. According to the Financial Review, this released worker is Jenny Jiang, who worked in administration in Shanghai.
Crown was among the companies that received warnings after China arrested employees last summer at Korean casino operators Paradise Co. and Grand Korea Leisure Co., Bloomberg reported last month, quoting an identified source.
Police had been investigating Crown for several months as part of an operation targeting gambling-related activities dubbed “Duanlian” – or “break the chain” with the goal of terminating personal and financial links between foreign casino operators and Chinese clients, the news agency quoted its source as saying at the time.