Dragon Corp denies involvement of ex-triad boss

Tuesday 21st of November 2017

The CEO of Wi Holding, the company looking to raise $500 million for a floating casino in Macau is denying the involvement of former triad boss “Broken Tooth” Wan Kuok-koi.

“Broken Tooth is not involved in Dragon,” said CEO Chakrit Ahmad to Business Insider earlier this month. “Do we know him? We know of him. We know him. Not to a great extent. He came to the event introduced by someone else as a prominent figure in Macau… He is not involved in Dragon and he is not financing Dragon in any way.”

In September, Dragon Corp announced a $500 million initial coin offering (ICO) for a yet-to-be-built casino that would float dockside in Macau.

The legitimacy of the company was however questioned, after the Macau government said it was unaware of the company or its relation to the local gaming market.

“[Both Dragon Corp. and Wi Holdings] are not gambling companies or companies responsible for the production of slot machines, and for the time being it is not possible to find the connection between these two companies and the gaming industry in Macau,” said DICJ director Paulo Martins Chan at the time.

Nevertheless, CEO Ahmad was confident of the project moving forward, and gave more detail on the plans for how the ICO and the tokens would work.

According to Ahmad, upon the release of “Dragon Coins”, gamblers will be able to buy Dragon crypto-tokens and exchange them for non-negotiable chips.

Ahmad says that the coins will have two sources of demand: Gamblers who buy them to use on the floating casino, and ICO investors who buy the coin for speculative reasons.

Dragon will charge a small fee for the exchange of the tokens each way.

“We charge 0.5 percent [each way], taking only 1 percent. It’s much quicker, cheaper, faster, more transparent,” Ahmad says, comparing it to the typical 5 percent charged by junkets. “You have full ownership of the tokens. It’s better in all aspects.”

Ahmad said that 20 percent of the funds raised in the ICO will go towards construction of the Dragon Pearl Hotel Casino. The other 80 percent will be financed by the Norwegian government.

“The floating hotel project provides a project that was unique, provided a tangibility in terms of asset value,” said Ahmad, claiming that the company has already signed four other casinos as partners.

(Photo sourced from Business Insider)

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