Notorious Macau gangster released from prison

HONG KONG (AP) - The notorious Macau crime boss known as Broken Tooth Koi, who was released from prison on Saturday after serving nearly 15 years, will hardly recognise the city he terrorised in the late 1990s with a brutal gangland war.

Wan Kuok Koi walked out of Coloane Prison in the Asian gambling mecca just before 7 am.

Wan was convicted of illegal money-lending, money laundering and being a gang leader in November 1999, a month before Portugal handed control of Macau, its colony for more than four centuries, back to Beijing. As head of Macau's 14K triad, Wan waged a brutal war with rival triads, or organized crime gangs, for dominance of the lucrative VIP rooms in Macau's casinos.

Wan was arrested shortly after a bomb destroyed the car of Macau's director of investigative police, Antonio Marques Baptista, who was out jogging when the vehicle exploded and was unscathed by the assassination attempt.