Beijing prevented the establishment of a US consulate in Macau over fears that US intelligence agencies would use the US diplomatic presence to blackmail Chinese public officials.

The claim was revealed in a 2010 document commissioned by the Asian division of casino operator Las Vegas Sands and subsequently obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley. As reported by The Guardian, Beijing also feared that Sands and its cantankerous owner Sheldon Adelson (pictured) were cooperating with US intelligence agencies’ efforts to dig up dirt on Chinese officials.

According to the Sands China-commissioned document, whose author is unknown, Beijing believed the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Intelligence were “very active” in Macau and had “penetrated and utilized” casinos operating in Macau in gathering intelligence on Chinese officials.

The CIA and FBI agents were believed to be monitoring activity inside the casinos, then “luring and entrapping” Chinese officials suspected of gambling with public money “to force them to cooperate with US government interests.”