Casino-related crime in Macau rose more than one-third in the first half of 2015 but politicians claim the spike is unrelated to the city’s ongoing gaming revenue slump.

On Friday, Macau’s Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak released the latest crime statistics compiled by the special administrative region’s police. The number of criminal cases related to Macau’s gaming industry rose 34.5% to 679, despite Macau’s overall number of criminal cases falling 0.9% to 7,025. Worse, the pace of casino crime is accelerating, as Q1’s total was up only 22.5% year-on-year.

The most striking rise came in the number of unlawful detention cases – where gamblers who can’t pay their debts are held against their will while friends or relatives on the mainland scramble to make the lenders whole – which rose 112.5% to 170, while usury and loan-sharking cases were up 39%.

Violent crimes were (mercifully) up a mere 3% and Macau recorded no instances of murder, kidnapping or crimes related to triad groups. Counterfeit currency cases fell 55.4%, because when there’s a lot less real money floating around, there’s fewer opportunities to pass the bogus bucks.