The Crown casino high-roller and junket partner known as “Mr Chinatown” - who is also a business partner of the Chinese president’s nephew - has been arrested and extradited to China for suspected money laundering and corruption.
Crown Resorts regarded Tom Zhou as a “very, very important person” and paid him tens of millions of dollars to lure high-rollers from China to Australia even though he was implicated in foreign influence operations, extortion, money laundering and had associations with drug and human traffickers.


Corporate records show Zhou was a business partner of millionaire Ming Chai, the nephew of Chinese president Xi Jinping. In Australia, Zhou set up a network of Chinese Communist Party influence organisations under the auspice of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front operation and supported by the Chinese consulate in Melbourne, even though he was subject to a long-standing Interpol red notice.
According to court files and briefings from local and overseas security sources, Zhou also operated with the triads - Chinese organised crime groups which run money laundering, human trafficking and drug trafficking rackets in Australia and Asia and who have historically run casino high-roller tours known as junkets.

Until his detention overseas, Zhou was heavily involved in three Australian organisations aligned with the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front operation - the organisation which works to influence Chinese diaspora communities and overseas political systems to advance the aims of the Communist Party.
According to an online report, one of Zhou’s organisations was “fostered” by the Communist Party’s “Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council” and has “the strong support of the Melbourne Chinese Consulate” as it has strived to earn “the trust of the motherland” and the Chinese government.
Zhou's fate in China is likely to remain a mystery. Analysts have suggested that triads who engage in “patriotic” work for the Communist Party can receive special protection from the state.