Indictment and arrest of Prince Group founder Chen Zhi has sparked questions about scam industry’s alleged ties to political elite, and integrity of government crackdown
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giant golden clam shell, illuminated by lurid neon lights and filled with playing cards and red dice, once glowed nightly on the facade of Sihanoukville’s Jin Bei casino. Today, the casino’s gaudy signage is covered by sheets, and its doorway blocked by a Chinese sign that reads “under renovation”.
The casino in the Cambodian resort city was once emblazoned with the name Jin Bei, a company US prosecutors have accused of running scam compounds on behalf Prince Group, which an October indictment alleged was one of Asia’s largest transnational criminal organisations.
The shuttering of the casino underlines the rise and fall of Prince Group and its founder Chen Zhi, a Chinese-born businessman who established one of Cambodia’s biggest conglomerates. Chen’s arrest this January in Cambodia has raised awkward questions about the scam industry’s alleged ties to the country’s political elite, and about the integrity of a crackdown on compounds predicated on human trafficking, forced labour and violence.
