A Philippine national who was offered a job at an Isle of Man gaming firm was refused a visa after it emerged, he last worked for a company reportedly linked to Chinese organised crime.

Tiejun Zhao has now lost his appeal again the decision by the Immigration Office not to grant entry leave over his previous links to Yabo.

Immigration adjudicator James Brooks said he was ‘entirely satisfied’ that the prospective employer had not knowingly sought to employ someone whose ‘presence in the island brings a risk to the public’.

But dismissing the appeal, he accepted that the Immigration Office was entitled to find that the the appellant held a senior position, for a considerable period, ‘within an organisation the criminality of which was widely publicised’.

Mr Brooks concluded it was clear that Yabo was ‘up to no good’ during the time the appellant was employed there.

Mr Zhao had obtained an offer of employment from Athol Street-based A2D Entertainment in May last year and he and his family then applied for entry clearance as a worker migrant, and as worker migrant dependants.

His CV showed that his most recent employment was as head of payment at Yabo, based at Pasay City in the Philippines, a role which he had held from November 2021 to August 2024.

The Immigration Office carried out research of open-source material which indicated that Yabo was a company under the auspices of a Chinese criminal organisation linked with human trafficking and illegal gambling.

Mr Zhao did not dispute this but insisted he was never aware of the fact and never witnessed or took part in such activities.

A 'minded to refuse' notice was issued to the appellant on July 4, which noted his associations with Yabo, his presence in the Isle of Man deemed not conducive to the public good.

Mr Zhao responded to the notice, confirming that he had resigned from, and completely separated from, Yabo and that his role did not involve participation in any strategic, commercial, or external-facing operations.

He appealed, claiming that the Immigration Office had made an 'unsupported leap' from the fact that he was employed in a relatively senior role to an assumed association with a criminal enterprise, there being no reliable or cogent evidence relating to his behaviour.

Home Office guidance states that 'mere association', even with a gang or known criminal, is insufficient to meet the public good threshold, his lawyer argued, and open-source material, such as media articles, could not meet the 'sufficiently reliable' standard.

For its part, the Immigration Office said the extent of Yabo's criminality and the fact that the appellant was significantly associated with such an organisation represented a ‘clear and obvious risk’ to the island.

Mr Brooks said he was satisfied that Yabo was involved in significant criminality.

He said that ‘undoubtedly’ there was no direct evidence of Mr Zhao having been himself involved in criminal behaviour but he had attempted to distance himself from what would appear to be a senior role at the company, which has since dissolved.