Cambodian authorities busted one Chinese-led illegal online gambling operation just days after the company set up shop and another before it could get its computers out of their boxes.
Last Saturday, a court in Cambodia’s northwestern Siem Reap province jailed four Chinese nationals for running an illegal online gambling operation in Siem Reap city. The four, including the owner, a man identified only as Mr Jiang, were arrested last Thursday night.
The authorities claimed Jiang ran an ‘online gambling den’ that operated under the name City Impression Entertainment World. Incredibly, corporate records indicate that the company had registered its business in Cambodia on January 17, just one week before the authorities pounced. Call us paranoid, but somebody with inside knowledge appears to have spilled the beans.
Cambodian authorities appear to be getting much better at nabbing Chinese-led online gambling operations before their businesses get too established. On January 15, police in the gambling hub of Poipet arrested 15 Chinese nationals on suspicion of illegal online gambling after local residents reported odd behavior at the villa housing the suspects.
These suspicions proved accurate, but police ended up releasing the suspects just three days following the arrests after determining that the online gambling business hadn’t actually gotten underway. Although no actual gambling took place, police decided to keep the gang’s computers, phones and other gear after ‘educating’ the suspects on the finer points of Cambodia’s criminal code.
It’s unclear why anyone would choose to operate illegally in Cambodia when the government sets a very low bar for acquiring an online gambling license. Last year, the Ministry of Economy and Finance issued 52 new casino licenses, most of which were acquired for the purposes of offering online services to international gamblers.
Regardless, it’s a particularly bad time to be a Chinese national arrested in Cambodia for cross-border crime. Last Friday, China’s Ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wentian held a press conference to announce that China was hell bent on “cracking down on Chinese people who perform criminal acts” in Cambodia.
Cambodia has deported 1,649 Chinese nationals over the past four years and Wang said China and Cambodia were “strongly allied” in their commitment to cracking down on foreign nationals engaged in “online gambling, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) extortion scams” and other chicanery.
Chinese nationals aren’t Cambodia’s only source of international wrongdoing. Earlier this month, local police arrested eight Thai nationals for running an online betting site (i99bet.net) that handled around $6m in wagers in just the past six months. But hey, at least they got a chance to run free before the gate slammed shut.
