A newly released study from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime points to weak regulations and subpar law enforcement as the reasons Southeast Asian casinos have become a haven for crime syndicates and perpetrators of money laundering.
The study, entitled “Transnational Organized Crime in Southeast Asia: Evolution, Growth and Impact 2019” said crimes in the casino sector are growing beyond the ability of law enforcement in Southeast Asia to control them.
According to the study, reported in GGRAsia, in January 2019 there were 230 licensed casinos in Southeast Asia, including 150 in Cambodia, 67 in the Philippines and a total of five in Laos and Myanmar. It noted the explosive growth of the industry in Cambodia, which hosted only 57 gaming halls in 2014.
“Many of these casinos emerged after a crackdown on money laundering activities in Macau, China in 2014, raising concerns that a ‘displacement’ of criminal activities associated with casinos has taken place to Southeast Asia, especially to jurisdictions in the Mekong region that lack regulatory oversight and enforcement capacity,” said the study, which was published by the UN Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok.
The study said casinos in the Mekong region, which includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam operated “illegally or quasi-legally” in areas that are “characterized by poor governance and political instability.
“Through these loosely-regulated or entirely-unregulated casinos, third-party intermediaries known as junket operators—who finance high-rollers or VIPs—the identities and activities of significant gamblers can be obscured,” the UN study stated.
The Kings Romans casino complex in the Golden Triangle district of Laos was called out for alleged links to “serious money laundering,” “storage and distribution of methamphetamine, heroin and other drugs for trafficking networks” and the “trafficking of wildlife, timber and people.”
The study concluded that governments in Southeast Asia must develop “proper regulatory and enforcement frameworks” to stem money laundering.
