CHINA-SOUTHEAST ASIA Casino tycoon arrested. Human trafficking in the shadow of the ‘new silk road’

She Zhijiang was arrested in Thailand and will be extradited to his home country. Along the “Belt and Road” flourish online casinos and fraud sites using “staff” trafficked from China and Southeast Asian countries. Due to China’s “zero covid” policy, criminal gangs recruit more and more people from Taiwan, which does not maintain diplomatic relations and finds it very difficult to get its citizens back.

Beijing () – She Zhijiang, a casino tycoon of Chinese origin, was arrested in Thailand and will be extradited to his country. This is one of the authorities’ crackdown on online gambling, which is banned in China but has flourished in parts of Southeast Asia along with other shady businesses in recent years. Beijing is now trying to curb the crime along the “Silk Road”“Because it harms China’s trade and reputation.

Born in 1982 in Hunan province, She Zhijiang obtained Cambodian citizenship in 2017. He has created gambling networks in Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines, the most important of which is Yatai New City, on the border between Myanmar and Thailand. . claiming to be part of the Belt and Road Initiative. According to the authorities, She controls human traffickers who lure people into modern slavery on online fraud sites.

These illegal activities have colonized some of the poorest areas in the region, where Southeast Asian governments have established special economic zones to attract Chinese investment. In 2016, for example, the Cambodian government established a special economic zone in the coastal city of Sihanoukville, where many buildings were left unfinished due to real estate debt. However, in recent years skyscrapers surrounded by high walls and barbed wire have been built in Laos and in areas of Myanmar controlled by pro-Chinese militias such as Myawaddy, on the border with Thailand.

After gambling was banned in China, Cambodian authorities began licensing virtual casinos that generate billions of dollars in revenue. According to statistics from the Cambodian immigration authority, more than 400,000 Chinese have left their country as a result of this measure.

However, when Chinese authorities realized that offshore casinos were a money laundering channel that allowed capital flight, they pressured the Hun Sen government to ban gambling, which it did in 2020. Some companies then moved, for example, to Myanmar, while others decided to convert their business into digital scams.

Criminal groups post recruitment ads and young people, lured by high salaries, are kidnapped and forced to work for websites that defraud other people abroad.

The buildings where victims of trafficking are locked up are called “digital industrial parks” and are guarded by the military and security guards. As soon as they enter, their mobile phones and passports are confiscated. People can only leave the complex by paying a ransom. Those who try to escape are physically abused and the women are used as sex slaves. There were also reports of victims being sold to other gangs or sent to the “KK Industrial Park” in Myawaddy, Myanmar, known for illegal organ trafficking.

Most of the people who work in these “industrial parks” come from China. According to Chinese media, at least 230,000 citizens involved in scams abroad returned to their country, but the information does not mention whether this was possible thanks to international judicial cooperation. Last year Beijing tried to persuade criminals to turn themselves in to the police by blocking their bank accounts and isolating families left in China. According to the Chinese government, thousands of suspects returned from Myanmar in this way.

In recent times, due to the “covid zero” policy, it has become increasingly difficult for criminal gangs to recruit “staff” in mainland China, so they have turned to Taiwan and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia. According to Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry, more than 200 Taiwanese are trapped in Cambodia or Myanmar. Online advertisements invite people to travel to Cambodia, where they can allegedly earn up to US$20,000 from commissions. Statistics show that indeed in the first part of the year there was a record number of transfers from Taiwan to Cambodia.

However, since there are no diplomatic relations, it is almost impossible for Taiwan to recover its citizens who have been victims of human trafficking. The authorities are forced to turn to major Taiwanese businessmen or the Cambodian police, but these often collude with criminal gangs. The families of the victims are also asking the Taiwanese mafia for help in paying the ransoms. Taiwanese police have stepped up patrolling of Taoyuan International Airport, where flights to Cambodia depart from, to discourage potential victims from traveling.

Cambodia denies the systematic trafficking of human beings and only admits “labour disputes”, but at this very moment it is circulating on the internet a video in which 40 Vietnamese escape from a Cambodian casino and try to swim back to their country.