**Chinese Gambling Kingpin She Zhijiang Extradited from Thailand to China**
She Zhijiang, a Chinese national accused of building an illicit gambling empire in Southeast Asia, is being extradited to China, ending his years-long battle against the order. She has been detained in Thailand since 2022, after Thai police arrested him in response to a Chinese request to Interpol. China accuses She Zhijiang of running illegal online gambling rings, and this week a Thai court upheld the decision to extradite him. He arrived at Bangkok airport on Wednesday, flanked by two security officials.
His extradition comes ahead of a landmark visit by Thailand’s king to Beijing—the first state visit to China by a reigning Thai monarch and a sign of deepening ties between the two countries.
She Zhijiang is one of the biggest names linked to the vast cyberscam hubs in Southeast Asia, which have trapped thousands of Chinese nationals and sparked a sweeping crackdown from Beijing. One of his most notorious projects is Myanmar’s Shwe Kokko city, near the Thai border. Although promotional videos portray it as a resort city for Chinese tourists, its glitzy buildings are allegedly home to fraud, money laundering, and human trafficking.
During a visit to the city earlier this year, the BBC observed very few overseas visitors. Local residents said scam businesses were still operating. She Zhijiang and his company Yatai have been sanctioned by the UK and the US due to his links to rights abuses in the scam centers developed in the region.
Speaking to the BBC from prison earlier this year, She Zhijiang insisted his company would “never accept telecom fraud and scams,” though he admitted that “scammers were likely to enter Shwe Kokko” since the city was “completely open to anyone.”
**Who Is She Zhijiang?**
Born in a poor village in Hunan province, China, in 1982, She Zhijiang left school at 14 and learned computer coding. He appears to have moved to the Philippines in his early twenties, where he entered the online gambling industry—illegal in China. In 2014, a Chinese court convicted him of running an illegal lottery, but over the years, he expanded his gambling business to Cambodia and other countries in the region. According to the US Treasury, he also holds Cambodian and Myanmar citizenship.
**Wider Impact of Cyberscam Hubs**
The UN estimates that hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in scam centers concentrated in Southeast Asia. Many victims are lured by fake job offers, then held against their will and forced to defraud others online or face brutal punishment. Many of those trafficked are Chinese nationals, which has become a major concern for Beijing.
In response, China has ramped up its crackdown on such scam operations. In recent months, it has sentenced multiple members of Chinese “mafia” families to death in a determined effort to curb illegal activities linked to criminal syndicates across Southeast Asia.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/thailand-extradites-owner-myanmar-scam-070248827.html
