No More Bets – Chinese Organised Crime in the Golden Triangle
The Asian Crime Century 34
Reality has become movie drama with the release of the new Chinese language movie, No More Bets. The movie tells the story of a Chinese male computer programmer and a female model who are enticed by the promise of high-paying jobs but find themselves trapped in the fictional South East Asian city of ‘Jianan’ (alluded to as in Myanmar) as prisoners of a ruthless gang, and forced into online gambling fraud. The movie’s director, Shen Ao, has stated that he studied over 10,000 real cases and interviewed a variety of people, from victims to police officers, to gain inspiration for the movie. The trailer for the movie gives a taste of what the story involves.
No More Bets reflects the reality of endemic online fraud and gambling across Asia, largely conducted by Chinese organised crime groups that have been displaced from their own country to other parts of Asia. Online fraud has become the most visible crime committed by these gangs, with huge levels of fraud conducted by phone and on the Internet. Online illegal betting and gambling are the most lucrative business lines for these gangs, causing according to one estimate around USD 145 billion to flow out of the PRC annually.
The seriousness of the situation has been shown by the recent meeting of the ambassadors of China, Thailand and Laos to discuss ways to enhance cooperation on combating illegal gambling and fraud in the region. According to news reports, on 15 August law enforcement officials from China, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos jointly launched an operation in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to combat online fraud and gambling-related crimes in the region, such as human trafficking, kidnapping and illegal detention.
The Ministry of Public Security in the PRC has stated that in 2022 police resolved 464,000 online fraud cases and detained 351 core members of fraud groups. In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology intercepted 2.1 billion phone calls and 2.42 billion messages related to fraud, while the Cyberspace Administration of China blocked nearly 800,000 overseas websites and 38,000 IP addresses involved in fraud. Nothing is small in scale in China, and these statistics, if correct, illustrate the widespread national scale of the criminal problem.
However, despite No More Bets showing the criminal activity in Jianan (or Myanmar), this growing organised crime problem is largely Chinese criminals (some with foreign passports) and from China. It originates from the long term displacement of organised crime from China to other parts of Asia.
From the early 2000s to 2017, Chinese organised crime groups from Mainland China were displaced to the Philippines, where they operated online gambling with licenses in the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority, the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone & Freeport Authority, and the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan. The US Navy base at Subic Bay and the US Air Force Clark Air Base at nearby Angeles City both became Freeport Zones after the departure of US military in the early 1990s, but both retained a thriving prostitution industry controlled by criminal groups with international links to bring in customers as tourists. The criminal groups in the Freeport Zones also gravitated to operating casino gambling as well as later online gambling as a new revenue stream in the 1990s and 2000s.
From 2016 onwards, Chinese organised crime groups were displaced from special economic zones in the Philippines to national licensing under the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) as ‘Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators’ (POGO), following President Duterte’s instruction that licensing be centralized. Whilst this action by the national authorities improved the administration of gambling licensing, it did not yet displace transnational organised crime groups away from the Philippines.
From 2018 onwards, Chinese and South East Asian organised crime groups were displaced from the Philippines to Cambodia (especially Sihanoukville) as well as Vietnam (to a lesser extent) to operate casinos and online gambling, following pressure by the PRC government on the Philippines authorities to take action against Chinese criminal groups operating POGOs.
From 2022 onwards, Chinese and South East Asian organised crime groups have been displaced from Cambodia to Myanmar to operate casinos, online gambling, and other criminal activities (people trafficking, online fraud, etc), following pressure by the PRC government on Cambodian authorities to take action against Chinese criminal groups operating in the country.
The criminal groups in Myanmar are also not completely out of reach of law enforcement. In August 2022, Chinese businessman She Zhijiang was arrested in Thailand for allegedly running illegal online gambling. Mr She has allegedly been involved in a USD15 billion project called Yatai City in a Myanmar border village that was intended to become a Singapore-like business hub. Mr She was reportedly arrested by the Thai authorities on the basis of an INTERPOL Red Notice issued by China, illustrating the importance of cross border cooperation to combat illegal betting.
In addition, the recent Singapore Police Force arrest of ten PRC nationals and the seizure of assets amounting to around one billion Singapore dollars illustrated the scale of the money laundering relating to organised crime gangs in Asia engaged in online fraud, online betting / gambling, as well as their other criminal business lines.
Despite these actions, the business of online fraud, online betting / gambling, and the related people trafficking continues, largely centred on the Golden Triangle of Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. The PRC state owned news outlet Global Times has indicated what the next steps may be, referring to the long established Mekong River joint patrol of law-enforcement authorities from China, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand that “are actively taking action”.
Chinese People’s Armed Police officers have been conducting joint armed patrols with police from Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand along the Mekong River outside of the Chinese border since 2011, with vessels from the China Border Police used for the joint patrols. This projection of law enforcement power outside of the PRC border has led to an effective Pax Sinica on the Mekong River with piracy eradicated. The scale of Chinese organised crime in South East Asia, and its impact not only on a huge number of victims within China but all around the region, raises the question of when the Chinese authorities will extend their operations to enforce a Pax Sinica in the Golden Triangle.