(Staff post from the ABC Australia on 12November 2025.)
Alleged Myanmar scam kingpin She Zhijiang extradited to China from Thailand: An alleged Chinese racketeer linked to a hugely lucrative scam hub in Myanmar has been extradited from Thailand to China.
She Zhijiang had been in Thai custody since 2022
after spending more than a decade on the run from Chinese authorities, accused
of ties to the Myanmar gambling and fraud hub Shwe Kokko. A Thai appeals court
upheld China's extradition request this week for the 43-year-old, who also held
Cambodian nationality, after lengthy legal wrangling.
He was flown out of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport
on Wednesday afternoon, local time, a Thai police official said. The
businessman was escorted from the airport's police station with his hands
braced behind his back by armed and masked Thai police, an uncommon practice
for local officers.
An Interpol red notice published in May 2021 and obtained by AFP said Mr She faced criminal charges in China related to running online gambling and fraud operations. He and his company, Yatai, have already been hit with sanctions by Britain and the United States.
Washington says he transformed a village on the
Myanmar–Thai border into Shwe Kokko — "a resort city custom-built for
gambling, drug trafficking, prostitution and scams targeting people around the
world". The gleaming city is one of the most infamous of the hubs thriving
in Myanmar's border regions, which have devolved into hives of black market
activity since a civil war consumed the country in 2021.
The hubs gained international notoriety for housing
internet fraud factories where workers, some of them trafficked, rob foreigners
with romance and business cons worth billions of dollars annually.
In pleas written from a Bangkok prison and seen by
AFP, Mr She denied all allegations of criminality and insisted his company was
simply an "urban developer". His attorney, Daniel Arshack, has told
AFP the allegations were "fabricated" and, once in China, "it is
expected that he will be deprived of due process, tortured, and ultimately
disappeared".
Mr She's Thai lawyer Sunya Eadjongdee declined to
comment on Wednesday, saying the extradition was a confidential matter. Scam
victims in South-East and East Asia alone were conned out of up to $US37
billion ($56 billion) in 2023, according to a UN report, which said global
losses were likely "much larger".
Beijing has led an international pressure campaign to crack down on the scam hubs, irked at its citizens being lured to work in the industry and targeting other Chinese with their cons. China sentenced five people to death this month for their involvement in a violent criminal gang with fraud operations in Myanmar's Kokang region.
She Zhijiang known as Tang Kriang Kai and by
numerous other aliases including She Lunkai, and Dylan She is a Chinese
Cambodian businessman. As the chairman of the Yatai International Holdings
Group, he and his group has long been engaged in investment and operation in
grey Industries such as the gambling industry in Southeast Asia.
The main targets of these industries are Chinese
citizens (China's strict prohibition on gambling has led to the rampant online
gambling industry targeting Chinese citizens) and Southeast Asians. As a
convicted criminal in China, She Zhijiang was a fugitive until his capture by
Thai police in August 2022. His business operations have been linked with human
trafficking, extortion, and cyber scams.
His company, Yatai International Holdings Group
(abbreviated Yatai IHG), is registered in Hong Kong and headquartered in
Thailand. He became a fugitive in 2012, after fleeing Chinese authorities. In
2014, a Shandong court convicted him of running an illegal lottery business in
the Philippines that targeted Chinese online users, and had netted US$298
million in profits.
In 2015, he began building a business in Cambodia,
involved in the illicit business of helping Chinese gamblers front-load
gambling bets made in Cambodian casinos. From there, he expanded his business
interests to the Philippines and acquired ownership of one of Manila's largest
spa and entertainment centers. In January 2017, he acquired Cambodian
citizenship, during which he changed his name to Tang Kriang Kai.
Cambodia's government grants citizenship to
individuals who donate at least US$250,000 to the government. Between January
2018 and February 2021, he allegedly colluded to register gambling companies
and recruited 330,000 gamblers, netting US$22.2 million in proceeds from
gambling scams.
In 2017, Yatai received a conditional permit from
the Myanmar Investment Commission to develop a small-scale housing estate in
Shwe Kokko, near the Burmese-Thai border town of Myawaddy. The Nation alleged
that Wan Kuok-koi, a former leader of the 14K syndicate, was a co-investor in
the project.
Shwe Kokko is controlled by the Kayin State Border Guard Forces (BGF), consisting of former Democratic Karen Buddhist Army forces that were formally integrated into the Myanmar Armed Forces in 2010. In 2019, the Cambodian government banned online gambling, which had come to dominate the local economy in Sihanoukville.
In response, Chinese casino and other illicit cyber
scam operators quickly exited Cambodia, and found a new base at Yatai's
development and similar Chinese-led developments like Saixigang and Huanya
International New City Project, along Myanmar's borders.
In promotional materials, Yatai claimed to be
developing a US$15 billion special economic zone called the Yatai New City,
encompassing 120 square kilometres (46 sq mi). The scale of Yatai's ongoing
development surpassed what had been approved by the Burmese government,
prompting additional scrutiny from Burmese authorities.
In 2020, Myanmar's civilian-led government formed a
tribunal to investigate irregularities in the Yatai development project,
successfully halting the project. Tensions between the Kayin State Border Guard
Force and the Myanmar Armed Forces escalated over the development. The
government of the People's Republic of China distanced itself from Yatai's
development, after an expose on She was published by Caixin.
However, after the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, during which the Burmese military deposed the civilian-led government, the military became pre-occupied with addressing the ensuing Myanmar civil war, enabling the development in Shwe Kokko, now a regional human trafficking and cyber scamming hub, to resume.
Buildings have been converted into prison-like hubs
from which cybercriminals run scams that target internet users around the
world. In December 2023, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on She Zhijiang
for being linked to "forced labour schemes" in which "victims
were trafficked to work for online scam farms".
On 13 August 2022, Thai police arrested She in
Bangkok, with plans to extradite him to China to face criminal charges. After
his appearance in a documentary for Al Jazeera he was moved out his detention
center.
As of January 2025, he was being kept in Klong Prem
Central Prison in Thailand, having been moved there from Bangkok Remand Prison
in October 2024. His lawyers have claimed that he had been subjected to abuse
in prison. It was reported that he had been kept in chains until early December
2024. He was in detention in prison in Thailand before November 2025. He was extradited back to China and he would be executed like the Chinese-Kokang cyber scammers before him.
