Sihanoukville, a special economic zone under China’s Belt and Road Initiatives in Cambodia plans to host 100 casinos. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the city has become a hub for the online gambling business. Screenshotfrom Al Jazeera English Youtube channel Thousands of victims across Asia have been lured by job scams and occasionally love cons, through messaging apps, kidnapped and forced to work for the scam network in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, a special economic zone under China’s Belt and Road Initiatives. Following the arrest of She Zhijiang, a wanted Chinese billionaire running a mega gambling ring across Asia, by Bangkok police in mid-August 2022, Cambodia’s human trafficking and scam operations dominated headlines in many Asia countries, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, Malaysia, Vietnam and more, as their citizens have been conned and enslaved through a cross-border crime network. Many of the scam victims are Taiwanese: Some of the individuals who have fallen prey to job scams have beaten, electrocuted, or enslaved if they do not perform satisfactorily. It is known that at least 6 victims paid a ransom of US$20,000 each to secure their release and made it back to Taiwan.https://t.co/VGKH3KzgnL — Focus Taiwan (CNA English News) (@Focus_Taiwan) August 25, 2022 Tan Hui Yee, Indochina Bureau Chief of Singapore-based media outlet Straits Times, shared a simple graphical explanation of the job scam on Twitter: Most of the recent job scam victims have been rescued from #Myanmar and #Cambodia. Here's a simple graphic about how the job scam works. pic.twitter.com/oBWhd3LJLV — Tan Hui Yee (@Tan_Hui_Yee) August 28, 2022 If the victims refused to work for the scam network, they would be tortured or even sold from one criminal group to another, and some were eventually trafficked to Shwe Kokko, a new city project fuelled by the Chinese capital in the Karen State of Myanmar near the Thai border. Protected by a local armed group (Saw Chit Thu’s Border Guard Forces), the lawless city has become an online gambling and scam hub targeting gamers from mainland China where gambling is illegal. The recently arrested Chinese billionaire She Zhijiang is the biggest investor in Sihanoukville and Shwe Kokko. According to a report from mainland Chinese finance news outlet Caixin in 2020, Zhijiang has been listed as a fugitive by mainland Chinese authorities since 2012 for operating an online gambling business. Yet somehow he managed to set up a company, Yatai International Holding Group Limited, in Hong Kong in 2017 and presented himself as a key investor in the mainland Chinese Belt and Road Initiatives. Yatai has made many gambling-related investments, including resort and hotel compounds, in Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines. Zhijiang will be extradited to mainland China for trial: Thai authorities detain She Zhijiang for running illegal online casino. On the run from Chinese authorities since 2012, China-born She holds Cambodian nationality and is behind the notorious Shwe Kokko project in Myanmar. 1/ https://t.co/Wsb6tPMv3i — People's Map of Global China / Global China Pulse (@GlobalChinaMap) August 14, 2022 In addition to Zhijiang, there have been other mainland Chinese investors in the gambling business in Sihanoukville. Dong Le-Cheng, the wealthiest businessman in Ruili city of Yunnan province, is behind the Jinshui hotel compound in Sihanoukville. He was convicted of illegal online gambling in 2008 but was sentenced to probation after assisting in a crime network crackdown. After becoming involved in a corruption investigation in November 2014, Dong transferred his business to Sihanoukville, Cambodia. But he denied his involvement in the cross-border scam: Yunnan Jingcheng Group and businessman Dong Lecheng issue strongly worded statement denying claims made by Al Jazeera, Net Ease, and other media outlets that it is involved in “human trafficking, fraud, cyber fraud”. https://t.co/i8t4l4lPjk — China-Cambodia Monitor (@ChinaCamMonitor) August 23, 2022 Another mainland Chinese fugitive investor in Cambodia is Xu Aimin. Xu’s online gambling empire in China was shut down by police authorities in December 2012, but in the same month, he set up a company in Hong Kong for money laundering purposes. In 2013 he was issued an Interpol red notice, an international arrest warrant. However, he managed to bribe officials so he could set up a gambling empire in Cambodia. Some analysts see the crime network as an unintended consequence of China’s Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI). Under the trade agreement, China’s BRI partners provide land and tax exemption to Chinese investors. These favorable terms attract opportunists, including criminals, to invest in high-risk businesses.