In its ongoing crackdown on cybercrime, Cambodia last week revoked the licences of four casinos linked to alleged Chinese scam king Chen Zhi. Zhi’s Phnom Penh-based Prince Group is reportedly behind one of the world’s biggest online fraud enterprises.
Cambodia’s Commercial Gambling Management Commission (CGMC) announced the action Thursday. It sanctioned three Sihanoukville casinos – Jinbei, Jinbei 4 and GC Casino – and also Golden Fortune in Kandal Province. A fifth, Casino Khom in Kampot on the Vietnam border, received a licence suspension.
“These casino licences were revoked because they were linked to Chen Zhi’s business alliance,” said Chhoeng Chantha, a regulatory advisor. CGMC added that the measures will “strengthen regulation of the commercial gaming sector … and ensure that operations are conducted lawfully”.
According to the Kiri Post, between January and February law enforcement in Cambodia shut down 190 scam operations across the country, including 44 gaming halls allegedly involved in “fraudulent activities carried out through technological systems”.
Alleged fraud king Chen Zhi
A Chinese national, Chen Zhi relocated to Cambodia, centre of a booming casino industry known to sometimes serve as a front for online scams. His Prince Group Holdings is reportedly behind a global “pig-butchering” empire that, at one point, raked in US$30 million a day. Those riches funded yachts, private jets, vacation homes and a Picasso bought at a New York auction house.
According to a 2025 CNN report, the “baby-faced tycoon” started his career running a Chinese internet cafe but found his fortune in Cambodia. Today, his Prince Group has interests in real estate development, financial services and consumer services. It hands out educational scholarships named for Zhi. Its stated philosophy claims the principals of “commitment, responsibility, respect, generosity and innovation”. Meanwhile, Zhi and his associates reportedly made a fortune scamming consumers around the world, on the backs of trafficked workers from 66 countries.
“Chen Zhi isn’t a mob boss as we traditionally conceive of them,” transnational crime expert Jacob Sims told CNN. “He is (or rather was) the polished face of a state-protected criminal economy.”
Cambodia: Committed to reform?
Zhi indeed can claim ties to high-ranking Cambodian officials. In 2022, he travelled to Cuba with former prime minister Hun Sen, acting in an advisory role. The following year, he entered the US using a diplomatic passport, said to have come from a foreign government official.
Those days of influence are over. In January, Cambodian law enforcement arrested Zhi and deported him to China. There he faces charges of fraud, money laundering, human trafficking and torture.
Recently, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime commended Cambodia for ramping up the fight against cyberfraud, a growing menace worth an estimated US$40 billion yearly. But Montse Ferrer of Amnesty International says the country must try harder. “If the government is serious about ending this slave-driven industry, it must investigate all scamming compounds in the country,” he told UCA News.
Marjorie Preston
Marjorie began her gaming career in 2007 and has focused on Asian gaming markets since 2020. Outside of work, she writes about travel and film and plays the drums.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/casino/cambodia-revokes-casino-licences-citing-chen-zhi-ties/
