Gambling
Individual Documents
Description:
"Regarding international concerns about online scam activities, including illegal casino gambling along the border of Karen State, the position of the Karen National Union (KNU) is as follows. 1. The emergence of online scam activities and illegal casino gambling is rooted in the poor system and corruption practiced by the successive governments of Burma (Myanmar) and is because of the lack of responsibility, accountability and rule of law of the successive governments. 2. The SAC is directly benefiting from these illicit businesses and are protecting and supporting them from behind. This has resulted in various social problems, not only for the Karen people in Karen State, but also for all those involved, and brings instability to the region, threatening global financial security and economic stability. 3. The KNU is absolutely opposed to any illicit business and is willing to combat the online scams and illegal casino gambling businesses. 4. The KNU is ready to cooperate with neighbouring countries and international organisations to clear out the online scam activities and illegal casino gambling businesses..."
Source/publisher:
Karen National Union
Date of publication:
2024-02-13
Date of entry/update:
2024-02-13
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Karen National Union (KNU), Illegal Economy - general, Gambling
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192.08 KB
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"Myanmar’s military coup in 2021 has triggered a widespread humanitarian crisis but also a breakdown in the rule of law. And the security situation is getting worse by the week. With the rise of lawlessness, the coup has provided freedom for cyber-criminals, human traffickers and gunrunners to operate along the border with Thailand. In the city of Shwe Kokko, Karen State opposite Thailand’s Mae Sot, Chinese triad gangs and criminals are exploiting the turmoil following the military takeover to expand their criminal activities.
Shwe Kokko, just north of Mae Sot, is notorious as a criminal hub for online gambling, scamming and trafficking.
The city is also known as Myanmar’s Silicon Valley, but since the coup its high-tech expertise and infrastructure has been geared to transnational criminal activity. Among the victims are foreigners lured to the city by offers of high-paying jobs in Thailand.
Last year, Filipinos, Malaysians, Indonesians, Indians, Thais, Taiwanese, Bangladeshis, Brazilians, Kenyans, Colombians and Hong Kongers traveled to Thailand on the promise of jobs, only to find themselves trafficked across the border to Shwe Kokko.
Just 20 kilometers south is KK Park, also known as KK Garden, which recently made headlines as a trafficking hub for Malaysian and Indian victims.
The victims in Shwe Kokko and KK Park are imprisoned and coerced to work for crime syndicates as online scammers. Those who refuse face physical punishment or even worse forms of abuse. Families of the victims have been asked to pay ransoms in exchange for the release of loved ones.
Embassies in Bangkok have been busy rescuing their citizens from Shwe Kokko. In diplomatic circles of the Thai capital, the name Shwe Kokko has now supplanted Myanmar’s democratic icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who languishes in a junta jail after her government was ousted in the February 2021 coup. The city is making headlines in regional newspapers as a hive of scams, abduction, and human trafficking, with governments increasingly under pressure to respond to emergency appeals from families and victims.
Shwe Kokko is under the control of the Karen State Border Guard Force (BGF) led by Colonel Saw Chit Thu, a Karen insurgent leader. Several years ago, he signed a ceasefire with Myanmar’s army that saw his breakaway Democratic Karen Buddhist Army rebadged as the Karen BGF under partial command of the military.
In the mid-1990s, Karen insurgents fought fierce battles with Myanmar armed forces around Shwe Kokko – an area known then as Kawmoora. The Kawmoora battleground was notorious among both Myanmar citizens and foreign journalists who arrived to cover the fighting between Karen rebels and state forces.
Few could have imagined this war-torn stretch of border would come under the control of a Karen breakaway group, which brokered peace and business deals with Myanmar’s military and invited massive investment by the Chinese underworld. These days, the regime in Naypyitaw is merely a sideshow in what could be dubbed Myanmar’s Special Criminal Zone.
In 2017, Saw Chit Thu formed a joint venture with Yatai International, owned by She Zhijiang, a Chinese national who holds Cambodian citizenship.
The result was the Karen BGF’s Chit Linn Myaing Co Ltd, the front for Chinese investment to develop a $15-billion special economic zone (SEZ) in Shwe Kokko. The project was portrayed as a high-tech hub with an airport, industrial zone, villas, amusement park, hotels and other facilities.
Once a fly-blown village of cattle smugglers and Karen BGF, Shwe Kokko transformed into the Chinatown of Karen State as Chinese investors, workers and gamblers flocked to the area. She Zhijiang was also responsible for turning it into a criminal hub for online gambling and scams.
In 2018, the Myanmar Investment Commission approved a first phase of the Shwe Kokko New City project: the $22.5-million construction of 59 luxury villas on 10.3 hectares. However, construction activity expanded well beyond those limits. Mae Sot, a sleepy town in the 2000s, transformed into a bustling city peppered with luxury vehicles, upscale restaurants and hotels, with flights from Bangkok mostly fully booked.
The developers initially claimed Shwe Kokko New City was part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but Beijing disavowed the project after it was investigated by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.
In 2020, the Chinese embassy in Yangon backed the government’s move to probe irregularities surrounding the controversial city development project in Karen State. Thailand shut off power and telecoms services to Shwe Kokko. However, power and Internet service were switched back on just weeks after the 2021 coup.
Chinese nationals continued to flow into Mae Sot. Among them was She Zhijiang, who is a fugitive in China but holds a Cambodian passport after investing in casinos there. She, also known as Dylan She, is chairman of Yatai International Holding Group.
Thai authorities arrested the billionaire fugitive tycoon in August 2022 for running illegal online gambling platforms, but Yatai said the arrest would not affect its business operations. Thousands of Chinese illegal immigrants continue to live in Shwe Kokko and the city’s online gambling venues are still busy.
The Myanmar military issues licenses for its allies and cronies to run hotels, clubs and casinos in towns on the border with Thailand and China. The operators pay annual fees to the military.
Among them is Myanmar crony businessman Tun Min Latt, an arms broker and drug trafficker who was arrested in Bangkok last year and has direct connections with top generals including junta boss Min Aung Hlaing and his family.
Tun Min Latt runs the Star Sapphire Group and operates several hotels and casinos in the border town of Tachilek, northern Shan State. His Allure Resort offers a casino, shopping and other entertainments for Thai and Chinese gamblers.
Tun Min Latt’s deep connections with high-ranking generals including Min Aung Hlaing give him freedom to run lucrative and illicit business along the border. His company pays annual fees to the military while he has also provided a considerable sum of money to the regime leader and his family. Junta leaders are reportedly trying to secure his release from detention in Thailand.
Several transnational Chinese criminal gangs operate hotels and casinos in the northern Shan State borderlands, also known as the Golden Triangle. Their local partners include the border guard forces and other militia and insurgent groups. The irony is they emerged after the coup “strengthened and with new opportunities to generate illicit income”, according to the United States Institute of Peace USIP.
How much tax revenue flows into the regime’s coffers from Shwe Kokko is not known. However, revenue received from criminals in the border city boosts the junta’s ability to purchase arms to suppress its own people.
New casino projects have mushroomed along the border in Karen State since the coup.
Meanwhile the regime has been condemned for mass killings and arbitrary arrests of opponents that amount to crimes against humanity. This criminal campaign extends from the heartlands to the ethnic border regions, so it is unrealistic to expect the regime to clamp down on transnational crime.
In fact, Chinese criminal tycoons are thought to have reached deals with Naypyitaw top brass involving substantial kickbacks. The military regime uses its control over the contested Karen territory to milk the area for revenues.
Elsewhere, it continues to loot citizens’ homes, shoot children, torture dissidents to death, torch villages, and bomb resistance forces and civilians with fighter jets.
The coup has triggered serious instability beyond the border regions, bringing an exodus of people, economic collapse, human tragedy and security concerns for neighbors.
Myanmar’s home-grown criminals are sitting in Naypyitaw. Meanwhile, transnational Chinese gangs are free to operate on the Myanmar-Thailand border, posing a serious security threat to the region.
It is time for governments of countries who share borders with Myanmar, including China, India and Thailand, to look into this matter more closely since criminal activities in Shwe Kokko and other casino hubs are directly linked to the junta in Naypyitaw. Criminals in Myanmar should not go unchecked – they pose a serious threat to countries across the region..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2023-02-27
Date of entry/update:
2023-02-27
Grouping:
Individual Documents
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"The recent arrest of a controversial Chinese businessman by Thai police for running an illegal online casino would not have impact on his mega project and gaming venture in Myanmar, said an official from the company that is operating the project near the Thai border.
She Zhijiang was arrested in Bangkok last week. He is the subject of an international arrest warrant for allegedly running an illegal online casino, Thai police said Saturday.
Chinese and other media reports say the 40-year-old has been on the run from Chinese authorities since 2012. He has had controversial mega projects and gaming ventures in Cambodia and at Shwe Kokko in Myanmar’s Karen state, as well as a lottery venture in the Philippines.
An official from Myanmar Yatai International Co., Ltd, which is developing the Shwe Kokko project, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that he had learned about the arrest.
“It won’t have any impact on Shwe Kokko. He may be arrested for his activities in other countries,” he said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Initiated as a new city project near the Thai border in 2017, the US$15-billion project is a collaboration between the BGF—a Myanmar military-backed armed group led by Colonel Chit Thu formerly known as the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA)—and a Hong Kong-registered company, Yatai International Holding Group (IHG). Myanmar Yatai International Co., Ltd is registered in Myanmar as a collaboration between IHG and Chit Lin Myaning, a company run by the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) active in the Shwe Kokko area near Myawaddy Township in Myanmar’s Karen State. She Zhijiang is the chairman of Yatai Group.
However it was halted and investigated by the National League for Democracy (NLD) government in 2019 due to a lack of transparency, land confiscations, confusion over the scale of construction and the growing influx of Chinese money as well as suspected illicit activity involving casino businesses. The Chinese Embassy in Yangon expressed support for Myanmar’s move to investigate the irregularities.
In 2020, however, Yatai IHG’s management continued its gambling operations in the new city, which was only partially finished, in spite of a coronavirus lockdown. That year, both Thai and Chinese citizens were arrested in Mae Sot by Thai border police after entering Thailand illegally. Those arrested confessed to having worked at casinos within Shwe Kokko. Their testimony indicates that both online and traditional casinos are still operating in Karen State.
Colonel Chit Thu told The Irrawaddy on Monday that the new city project is currently halted. He couldn’t say exactly how it would be affected by the arrest of She.
“I think he was arrested for what he was involved in before the Shwe Kokko project,” the colonel said.
When asked about gambling in the new city, he said Shwe Kokko is not a gambling city.
“We only have a little casino venue,” he said.
Interpol issued a red notice for She in May 2021. He faces criminal charges in China related to running a casino and could face a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail, AFP reported.
Between January 2018 and February 2021, She — who heads up a “criminal gang” — colluded with others to register companies, and research and develop online gambling platforms, the red notice says.
The notice adds that online gambling websites including Hongshulin, Yigou and Yiyou International were set up and 330,000 gamblers were recruited..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2022-08-15
Date of entry/update:
2022-08-15
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burma's economic relations with China, Business and the Military, The Burmese military's role in the economy, Gambling
Language:
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Description:
"MONGLA, Myanmar: Bentleys and BMW convertibles roll up to the "Venetian Casino" in Mongla on the Myanmar-China border, a melting pot of sex, drugs and gambling on a frontier that has also become a "supermarket" for illegally traded wildlife.
This area of Myanmar is largely self-governed -- lying within the country's borders but playing by its own rules, nestled in the eastern range of mountains and cut off from the rest of the country.
Instead, the region looks to China.
The yuan is the currency of choice, most people speak Mandarin and phones connect to Chinese, not Myanmar, networks. It is also the insatiable Chinese demand for illegal wildlife products that is driving the booming trade in Panghsang, a reclusive city to the north of Mongla in territory controlled by the ethnic Wa.
Tiger and leopard pelts are piled up in full view at streetside shops also displaying ivory, pangolin scales and stacked cages of rare birds.
Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) conservation director Nick Cox says the open sale of the illegal products is a problem "not just for Myanmar but for the region", calling it a "wildlife supermarket".
As night descends on the quiet streets of Panghsang, pockets of pink light illuminate the gloom -- emitted from the countless Chinese-branded massage parlours dotting the roads..."
Source/publisher:
"Bangkok Post" (Thailand) via AFP (France)
Date of publication:
2019-04-26
Date of entry/update:
2019-09-22
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Fauna of Burma's forests, Drugs: regional and global, Burma: drug production and trafficking, Gambling, Sex industry, Smuggling apart from drugs
Language:
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Description:
A lucrative, illegal casino culture thrives o?n criminality and a blind eye...
The precise government figure of 660,206 tourist arrivals in Burma in the past year doesn?t included my short holiday trip by small boat across a small tributary of the Mekong River at Sop Ruak, a sleepy village at the northern edge of Thailand...Given the opaque nature of the 20 or so casinos strung along the Burmese border—not o?nly alongside Thailand but also opposite China—it?s not surprising that revenue figures are difficult to obtain. Some observers estimate a $750 million a year gross from Burma casinos.
Nothing o?n this scale could happen in Burma, of course, without the connivance of the military and its cronies, who are in effect in partnership with the casino operators. The figures indicate that the Naypyidaw military regime may reap close to $40 million a year based o?n an estimated five percent of the gross. A Thai government report recently estimated that about half a million Thais lose nearly $200 million a year in Burma-based casinos alone..."
William Boot
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" Vol. 15, No. 1
Date of publication:
2007-01-00
Date of entry/update:
2008-07-26
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Gambling
Language:
English
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Description:
Former casino hub Mong La struggles to reinvent itself as gamblers disappear...
"The once famous transvestites that lined Mong La?s market square have gone, and so, too, the East European prostitutes. Renowned in past years as Burma?s premier gambling and entertainment center, the city has now dimmed the lights on what was thought—only a few years back—to be a nonstop party.
A neon sign that lights up what was formerly the town?s leading casino still entices would-be gamblers with the large illuminated words ?oh! That?s wonderful.? Only the LT Casino no longer accepts paying customers.
?It hasn?t been open for a year,? a guard at the front gate told me in Chinese.
Hard times have fallen on this formerly prosperous city in northeastern Shan State, near the border with China. In September 2003, Beijing began to curb Mong La?s fledgling casino industry after the relative of a Chinese official reportedly lost more than US $100,000 in a single visit to the town.
Alerted to the city?s excesses in gambling, prostitution and drugs, the Chinese government amassed troops on the border between Shan State?s Special Region 4 and the Yunnan province border with Burma. All Chinese citizens were ordered to return, visas to the area were heavily restricted and no Chinese were permitted to stay overnight in Mong La on the threat of strict punishment..."
Clive Parker
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" Vol. 14, No.2
Date of publication:
2006-02-00
Date of entry/update:
2006-05-01
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Gambling
Language:
English
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Description:
"Cosmopolitan, garish and connected to the outside world via Internet and mobile phones, visitors to Mong La wonder if they are really in Burma anymore...
For a while it seems like a road to nowhere. Only army checkpoints and small clusters of huts indicate some life. Then, quite suddenly, the view widens into a valley and the road changes from dirt to tar. At dusk the city ahead looks like a space shuttle that descended upon earth. Abundant neon lights line the buildings. Along a wide avenue, street lamps flash like fireworks. This is Mong La, the capital of Special Region Number Four in eastern Shan State.
One wonders if this is still Burma. "Yuan," demands an old woman selling water when she is given kyat. A Chinese employee in the hotel hands over the key without the form filling and other paperwork so typical of the bureaucratic control elsewhere in the country. A condom in the basket of toiletries suggests there are other freedoms to be enjoyed too..."
Joan Williams
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" Vol. 11, No. 1
Date of publication:
2003-01-00
Date of entry/update:
2003-06-03
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
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Description:
"An illegal version of the state lottery is lining the pockets of dealers and officials, but leaving
ordinary Burmese none the richer.
?I?m betting eight hundred kyat on 71 this week. That?s all the money I?ve got to spare, but I?m sure to
win. I got this number from a guy who played 30 kyat and won 2,400 last month. So I?ll be rich soon.? ..."
Ko Thet
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy", Vol 9. No. 8, October-November 2001
Date of publication:
2001-11-00
Date of entry/update:
2003-06-03
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Gambling
Language:
English
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