Daughter of Taiwanese Movie Stars Convicted of Theft From Casino

On January 20, the arrest and conviction of the daughter of one of the most beloved stars of Taiwan cinema, Chiu Yong Qin became public. Her daughter, Chiu Yee-Fong, 30, who has been in trouble with the law in the past, yet claimed to have turned her life around, was offered a position at the new Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa Casino. The casino stated that her presence as a croupier at the highest limit tables would attract wealthy Chinese gamblers who were well familiar with her mother’s career and would travel to Singapore due to prohibitive Taiwan gambling laws. The casino was not wrong until one day when a fellow croupier saw a casino chip on her chair during a break and informed casino security.

After examining the eye in the sky footage, the casino determined that between September 28 and November 7, the prodigal daughter stole a total of $110,400 in different denominations of $100 and $1000 chips. After stealing the chips from the float, she would secretly pass them to her boyfriend who quickly cashed them at the cage. Footage revealed that she hid chips inside her blouse a total of 144 times without being caught. The boyfriend was not charged because he believed the money were gratuities and spend some himself on internet gambling.

The money was quickly recovered from her bank account and an additional $11,100 in chips was found hidden at her apartment. The father, another famous actor, quickly came to his daughter’s aid, blaming himself and the difficulty of adjusting to life in Singapore away from Taiwan – “Now that it has happened, we must face the facts and take responsibility for it. We will return the money that was stolen, it doesn’t belong to us after all…Normally, and the time I spend with her is quite little. Here I am probably to blame,”

The apology did not move the strict Judges of Singapore who quickly sentenced Ms. Chiu to 21 months in prison. Ms. Chiu, upon hearing the sentence, began to hysterically cry and beg her famous parents to rescue her and bring her back home to Taiwan. Ms. Chiu should feel fortunate since only due to her lineage did she avoid a 15 year prison term that is the norm for such an offense. Gambling laws as well as laws that regulate online casino in Taiwan are difficult to understand by foreigners and are in flux. Such behavior blemished ‘the face’ of her family for many years to come according to Taiwanese tradition.