Alleged gambling kingpin linked to scam centres extradited from Thailand to China

She Zhijiang, an alleged transnational crime kingpin accused by Beijing of having run more than 200 illegal online gambling operations, is being extradited to China from Bangkok on Wednesday, Thai police have said. The Chinese national is perhaps the most prominent figure among Asia’s alleged cybercrime operators to be arrested, and has been linked to regional scam networks by the US. She, 43, a Chinese national who also holds a Cambodian passport, was arrested by Thai police in August 2022 on an international warrant and an Interpol red notice requested by Beijing, which accused him of running illegal online gambling operations. Related: Revealed: the huge growth of Myanmar scam centres that may hold 100,000 trafficked people A Thai criminal court ordered his extradition in May last year and another court upheld the decision on Monday after an appeal from She’s legal team. “The Chinese have asked for this suspect, which is a high priority for China,” police Lieut Gen Jirabhop Bhuridej, an assistant commissioner general, told reporters. She will be extradited to China to stand trial for operating illegal casinos and gambling websites, as well as using Myanmar as a base for these illegal operations and to launder money, a Thai police statement said on Wednesday. Responding to the extradition, his lawyer Sanya Eadjongdee called the process “unusual”, but did not elaborate. He said She continued to deny any wrongdoing. At the time of his arrest, She headed a gambling empire that included a $15bn casino, entertainment and tourism complex called Shwe Kokko on the Thai-Myanmar border. The US treasury department in September sanctioned nine companies and individuals tied to Shwe Kokko for their links to regional scam and trafficking networks. The border areas between Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia have become hubs for online fraud since the Covid-19 pandemic, and the UN says billions of dollars have been earned from the trafficking of hundreds of thousands of people forced to work in these compounds. Hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked by criminal gangs across south-east Asia in recent years and forced to work in scam centres, many of them located inside war-torn Myanmar. On Wednesday, the US imposed financial sanctions on a Myanmar militia group for supporting a cyber scam operation that targeted Americans from territory it controls. The latest US sanctions aimed at scam networks target the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army and four of its leaders, as well as entities and an individual linked to Chinese organised crime, the US treasury department said. “Criminal networks operating out of Burma are stealing billions of dollars from hardworking Americans through online scams,” said John Hurley, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, using an older name for the country. “These same networks traffic human beings and help fuel Burma’s brutal civil war. The [Trump] administration will keep using every tool we have to go after these cybercriminals – wherever they operate – and to protect American families from their exploitation.” With Reuters and the Associated Press