Illegal gambling networks continue to rear their head in Southeast Asia as the region seeks to fight back against the criminal operations.
Most recently, a Thai appeals court approved a decision to extradite She Zhijiang to China, where he is accused of running over 200 illegal online gambling operations.
Zhijiang, who holds both Chinese and Cambodian citizenship, was arrested in Bangkok in August 2022 and has been held there ever since as he fought extradition. However, the appeals court’s ruling requires that he now be sent to China within 90 days.
According to The Nation, Zhijiang’s operations had a cash flow of over 12.6 trn baht (£294.9bn).
He and his company, Yatai International Holdings Group, were also involved in the development of the Yatai New City project in Myanmar’s Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone, which housed two casino complexes targeting Chinese gamblers. Shwe Kokko has been repeatedly flagged for cyberscam activities and links to human trafficking.
In September, Zhijiang was sanctioned by the US Treasury in relation to the Yatai New City project.
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated Zhijiang and companies related to him as “foreign persons who are responsible for or complicit in, or who have directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse”.
He was also sanctioned by the UK in 2023 for his links to forced labour schemes in Cambodia that trafficked workers to undertake fraud as part of online scam operations.
A persistent issue
Illegal gambling operations and wider cybercrime have become a persistent problem throughout Southeast Asia.
Last week, authorities in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore confirmed that they had seized assets totalling approximately $615m related to Prince Holding Group and its founder Chen Zhi.
Prince Group has been accused by the UK and US governments of using disused casinos to run scam operations that have manipulated victims out of billions of dollars.
According to a joint report, there is also evidence that the Cambodian conglomerate has trafficked foreign nationals and forced them to carry out the scams under the threat of torture.
Chen, a Chinese-born Cambodian national, has been charged by the US Department of Justice with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy related to Prince Group’s alleged operation of these forced-labour scam compounds across Cambodia.
In total, the UK and US’ joint action has targeted 146 individuals connected to the group and its operations across Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
These instances highlight why jurisdictions such as the Isle of Man have cautioned against working with businesses linked to the region due to the risk of “criminal infiltration”.
