She Zhijiang, charged with running an illegal gambling operation in Southeast Asia, is fighting extradition to China, saying he is no longer a Chinese citizen.
According to Inside Asian Gaming, the casino kingpin was arrested in Thailand last year for allegedly running a cross-border gambling scheme in Asia’s Golden Triangle, which encompasses Thailand, Myanmar and Laos.
She claims he’s been a Cambodian citizen for years, and therefore beyond the reach of Chinese law enforcement.
She is chairman of the Yatai International Holding Group, which develops casinos along the border of Thailand and Myanmar and is an investor in a US$15 billion tourism complex in Myanmar’s Shwe Kokko special economic zone. Since 2018, She has reportedly built a number of online gambling platforms aimed at Chinese gamblers.
In 2014, he was convicted in a Chinese court of running an illegal lottery business in the Philippines. He fled to Cambodia to escape punishment in the case, and apparently acquired Cambodian citizenship at that time. Media outlets in China and Taiwan report that She’s Myanmar complex has also been the site of human trafficking.
In comments provided to IAG, She said he had been talking with the Chinese government about “the advantages of the Yatai Zone to … China’s Southeast Asian political strategy,” but landed on an Interpol list after he rejected their advances.
He wrote, “The China government moved to seize the Yatai Zone using Chinese domestic law, which enables the right of recourse against Chinese citizens. When I cooperated with the China Federation of Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs, the Chinese government didn’t arrest me. During my trip to China from 2017 to 2019, the Chinese authorities also did not arrest me.
“The Chinese government had me arrested when I changed my nationality to Cambodian. I had already completed the procedure of canceling my Chinese nationality, but the government is still using domestic law to prosecute me.”
Lawyers for She say his case could be a “landmark test of international extradition law,” IAG reported.
