Xu Aimin was sentenced to 10 years in a Chinese prison in 2013 for masterminding an illicit international gambling ring with an estimated turnover of $1.75 billion. Rather than do the time for his crime he has instead spent the last eight years building an immense Cambodian business empire, including, ironically enough, a capacious casino in the port city of Sihanoukville.

The financially savvy fugitive owes both his commercial success and liberty to high-level political connections in Phnom Penh. Those connections are perhaps best illustrated in a photo posted to the Facebook page of the Royal Gendarmerie of Cambodia, or Military Police.

At the center of the photo, taken in December 2018 at the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital in Phnom Penh, are 2,000 hundred-dollar bills, bundled together on a silver plate, which is being received by the hospital’s then-CEO Peter Struder.

Flanking Struder and handing him the plate are Xu, with a weathered face and brown suit, and a markedly more fresh-faced Rithy Samnang. Known simply as “Tek” by his friends, Samnang is the son-in-law of ruling party senator Kok An, who made his fortune during the 1990s in the cigarette and casino businesses.

Standing next to Xu is another entrepreneurial Chinese émigré, Su Zhongjian, who counts among his business partners Try Pheap, a U.S.-sanctioned timber tycoon and confidant of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Together, Xu, Samnang and Zhongjian are the owners of the KB Hotel & Casino in Sihanoukville and RSX Investment Co. Ltd. Presiding over the donation is national Military Police Commander Sao Sokha.

A Wanted Man

Just eight years earlier, Xu’s billion-dollar gambling racket in China had run into problems. The center of the action was Jingzhou, a city on the banks of the Yangtze River in Hubei province, best known for its 1,200-ton bronze statue of an ancient war god.

In October 2010, Jingzhou police were alerted to online baccarat being offered at a city hotel. Gambling having been illegal in China since 1949, an investigation was launched that traced the operation to a server in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

Two years later, on December 14, 2012, a triumphant article appeared in the China Daily, announcing the shutdown of a “major international gambling ring” with a turnover of 11 billion yuan ($1.75 billion) and 120 agents identified within China alone and 27 suspects apprehended. In all its triumphal excitement the state-owned newspaper omitted to mention one crucial detail: the operation’s ringleader was still at large.

View this full story online at:  https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/china-gambling-06232021080918.html

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/special/hunsen-family/xu-aimin.html

https://www.rfa.org/khmer/multimedia/hunsen-family/xu-aimin.html

https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/features/hottopic/jointpj-06212021162628.html

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