What a mysterious death tells you about the future of Macau

Almost a year has passed since the first woman to head Macau’s customs service was found slumped in a pool of blood inside a public toilet with a plastic bag pulled over her head, her wrists and throat slashed and an empty bottle of sleeping pills by her side.

Despite their best efforts, doctors at the only public hospital in the city that has out-Vegased Las Vegas to become the most lucrative gaming destination on the planet could not save 56-year-old mother of two Lai Man Wa, who had been in the top job only a matter of months.

Had events not taken such a tragic turn, at the point when Lai was declared dead by medics at the city’s Hospital Conde San Januario, she should have been in a top-level meeting with senior mainland officials in nearby Zhuhai discussing the integrity of the Macau Special Administrative Region’s borders with mainland China.