She Zhijiang, Gabling Tycoon, Arrested After a Decade At Large

Last month, Thai authorities announced the arrest of She Zhijiang, an expatriate Chinese businessman linked to a raft of shady developments in several Southeast Asian countries. Thai police said that the 40-year-old businessman was taken into immigration custody on August 10, pending an extradition request from the Chinese government.

Agence France-Presse reported that the arrest was made on the basis of an Interpol red notice issued in May 2021, stating that She is facing criminal charges in China related to running a casino. The red notice alleges that between January 2018 and February 2021, She headed a “criminal gang” and colluded with others to research and develop online gambling platforms, as well as registering companies involved in such activities. Three such online gambling websites were set up and recruited 330,000 gamblers.

As the Chinese media outlet Caixin noted in its extensive 2020 investigation into She and his Southeast Asian business empire, the tycoon had been on the run from Chinese authorities for a decade. In 2014, a court in China’s Shandong province convicted She for operating an illegal lottery business in the Philippines that targeted Chinese web users, which allegedly earned him 2.2 billion yuan ($298 million). While eight of his accomplices were sentenced to prison terms, She managed to flee and has been a fugitive from the law ever since.

She has since become involved in investments in Myanmar and Cambodia. His most prominent and controversial development is the $15 billion Yatai New City development, which has been built at Shwe Kokko in Myanmar’s Kayin State, bordering Thailand. The project, which is being built by She’s Hong Kong-registered Yatai International Holdings Group in partnership with a militia affiliated with the Myanmar armed forces, broke ground in 2017. Its ambitious plans involved the creation of a hub of “science and technology, gambling and entertainment, tourism, culture, and agriculture,” in addition to  appurtenances like safari parks and shooting ranges. In practice, Shwe Kokko’s main business appears to be gambling: it includes at least three casinos that serve local and overseas customers, as well as the same sort of online gambling operations for which She is wanted by the Chinese authorities.

She’s arrest in Thailand is unsurprising given Interpol’s arrest warrant, but it raises the question of why the authorities elsewhere have not arrested him. The case of Myanmar is fairly straightforward. She’s business activities take place in an area of the country outside the central government’s jurisdiction, which has allowed him to elude arrest, even as the former National League for Democracy government promised to investigate the Shwe Kokko developments.

But the situation in Cambodia is very different. She has had business interests in the country for some time and, according to a detailed report by Frontier Myanmar, was granted Cambodian citizenship in 2017, under the name “Tang Kriang Krai.” An Al Jazeera documentary that aired in July identified She as one of several expatriate Chinese businesspeople who are behind the astounding rise of cyber-scam operations in Cambodia. Focused on the southern coastal city of Sihanoukville, these operations involve duping job-seeking victims from across Asia into scam centers, where they are held against their will and forced to run mobile phone and internet scams in a host of languages. These operations have started to generate a deluge of regional and global concern as journalists have uncovered the scale of the trafficking, torture, and coercion needed to sustain them.

If the Cambodian authorities had any interest in arresting She – and presumably they would have good reason to – they would not have had to look far. Their inaction is more puzzling still when viewed in light of the intimate partnership that Cambodia and China have established over the past two decades, which leaders of both nations have described as “iron-clad.” If Beijing wanted She arrested, why didn’t it lean on Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government to turn him over?

The answer to this question is in many ways the most obvious one. While it is unclear whether She has traveled to Cambodia recently, and whether the Cambodian authorities have had the chance to detain him since the Interpol red notice was issued, other Chinese businesspeople who are known to be involved in the cyber-scam operations remain in the country – and emphatically at large. Another key figure alleged by Al Jazeera to be involved with the scam operations is Xu Aimin, a Chinese businessperson who was sentenced to 10 years in 2013 for masterminding an illicit international gambling ring with an estimated turnover of $1.75 billion.

After evading capture, Xu also sought sanctuary in Cambodia, where, like She, he now controls his own flourishing business empire, including a large casino in Sihanoukville. According to a Radio Free Asia report, “It is remarkable that Xu has been able to remain in Cambodia for so long with warrants for his arrest active in China and Hong Kong.” Another key Chinese tycoon operating in Cambodia is Dong Lecheng, who has similarly been charged with gambling-related offenses in China.

The answer to the question of why these individuals continue to operate freely in Cambodia is not because they are in hiding – Xu has a road named after him in Sihanoukville – but rather lies in the nature of Cambodia’s extractive political economy.

As multiple investigations and exposes now make clear, these Chinese businessmen have insinuated themselves into the highest levels of power in Cambodia, and enjoy what is known as khnong. A Khmer word meaning “back,” khnong is used to indicate protection and backing from above. As Al Jazeera noted, local officials alleged to be connected to these fugitive Chinese tycoons include “a nephew, an adviser, a former adviser, and a generous supporter” of Hun Sen, as well as “one of his longest-serving political allies.” RFA similarly alleges that Xu Aimin “owes both his commercial success and liberty to high-level political connections in Phnom Penh.”

It is unclear how much pressure the Chinese government has put on Cambodia to detain these officials, and it is possible that Beijing sees some benefit in downplaying this issue in the interests of amiable relations with Phnom Penh. But it reveals an interesting dynamic in the bilateral ties between Cambodia and China. Even in an age of “iron-clad” relations, the Cambodian government’s first loyalties are to its own survival and self-enrichment, and only secondly to the needs and interests of the Chinese government.