Former Macau Gangster ‘Broken Tooth' Raises US$750 Million in Cryptocurrency Offering Through His Company World Hung Mun Investment

"Broken Tooth” Wan Kuok-koi

Thank you, People's Bank of China?

Former Macau triad gangster “Broken Tooth” Wan Kuok-koi has partnered with a mysterious Beijing firm to back chess and poker tournaments in mainland China, as his company said it raised US$750 million in less than five minutes in an initial coin offering for his “HB” cryptocurrency, reports the South China Morning News.

Wan launched the ICO at a star-studded event in Cambodia, attended by high-ranking government and military officials, businessmen and celebrities from mainland China and Hong Kong.

In total, Wan’s company, World Hung Mun Investment, said it had sold 450 million HB tokens at three events, in Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines, with a final stop scheduled in Malaysia on Wednesday.

But SCMP notes:

[D]oubts remain over the currency, the provenance of the Chinese company, and the chess and poker tournaments, the first of which was slated to take place in Hainan in October, that Wan would be providing prize money for in the form of HB tokens. 

Earlier this month a company called Zhonggongxin Cosmos (Beijing) Internet Technology Limited said it had signed an agreement with Wan’s investment company to work together on a chess and poker game contest in Hainan...

Guo [Jia, a member of staff at Zhonggongxin Cosmos] said there was no law against using cryptocurrency as prize in China, and the company would host the competition according to the law.

However, a lottery industry veteran said using cryptocurrencies as payment in chess and poker games in China was an unregulated grey area.

“When chess and poker games are paid with tokens such as cryptocurrencies that can be converted to fiat currencies, it becomes a disguised form of gambling in China,” Su Guojing, founder of the China Lottery Industry Salon, said. “There’s a legal loophole on this issue.”

For Li Yongfeng, founder of Shubei, a social network and information portal for investors in cryptocurrencies, there were concerns surrounding the technology Wan’s company was using to support HB.

He said there was only a vague reference to HB’s technology in its investment document, and no source code was disclosed, which made it impossible for people to track and verify the currency.

“People would not be able to know how many tokens are issued without details of its technology, ” Li said.

-RW