The case was already three years old. Thirty-seven-year-old baccarat dealer Michael Hu had allegedly teamed up with a female baccarat player Yixuan Cui to cheat Hu's employer, Crown Casino, out of a cool four hundred grand. Casino investigators became aware of the allegedly cheating, which had Hu supplying winning hands to Cui, who was making large bets at the baccarat table. A cheating technique known as false-shuffling was performed by Hu, whereby he knew the order of the cards coming out of the card shoe in advance and protected that sequence by making believe to shuffle the cards.
The pair were seized and taken to the casino's security room, where both alleged cheats confessed. The only problem was that their confessions were cajoled from them by overeager and over-aggressive security interrogators who did everything from telling them they would help them with the police if they gave confessions because they were ex-cops themselves who had connections within the police department to downright threatening them if they didn't confess.
Threats of long prison sentences, allegedly on tape, and other types of threats were made against the pair, whose lawyer now says not only must the case be dropped but also the defendants are entitled to $250,000 in damages, which equals the sum of cash and chips that were seized from their apartments, their winnings from the casino.
One Crown Casino surveillance investigator named Manuel Lyberis reportedly told the pair, "We're just trying to help you, mates. It's like a get-out-of-jail card, and if you don't take it now, you won't get another opportunity. Then the casino's investigations manager, Jason McHutchinson, told them, "I will cop the full extent of the law on you if you don't confess.
Well, both Mr. Lyberis and Mr. McHutchinson really overplayed Crown Casino's hand. They had a real tight case against the alleged cheats, including the two hundred grand in cash and fifty grand in Crown Casino chips they seized from the raided Melbourne apartments where the suspects lived.
All in all, it looks like Hu and Cui are gonna be able to get back their cash and have no criminal record from the case.
My take: Shame on the Crown Casino security and surveillance departments.
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