The Burmese Garden of Hell Casino

In the Myawaddy village of Shwe Kokko, Myanmar, lies a casino and entertainment complex known as KK Garden. While local officials claim it has Chinese investment, those who have managed to escape the compound paint a much darker picture, referring to it as the "Garden of Hell".

This seemingly innocuous entertainment venue is suspected to be a hub for organised crime and scamming operations, where people are lured from various Southeast Asian countries with promises of easy work and good wages to support their families.

Upon arrival, the workers were held prisoner and forced to work in online scam centres. According to witnesses, this is far from the only such place in the Southeast Asian gambling space with Cambodia often highlighted as another human trafficking destination.

The Garden of Hell

Victims and their families have shared harrowing stories of their experiences inside the "Garden of Hell."

One such victim, 23-year-old Zhen Feng, was lured to the complex with the promise of a high-paying job before being taken prisoner. Last year, his parents travelled to Thailand to collect his ashes after he died in a border town hospital under a false name due to infection in his heart and lungs. A tip-off by another Malaysian victim revealed that Feng had been taken to KK Garden.

Malaysian publication The Star reported that Feng was only one of around 200 Malaysians who suffered the same fate.

“A 30-year-old man said he was hoodwinked by a Malaysian he befriended on WeChat, a Chinese messaging app. He was offered 50,000 Thai baht (about US$1,300/RM5,900) a month for an easy job and flew to Bangkok in mid-July.

“He was taken to Mae Sot and crossed the river into Myanmar where armed men in military outfits escorted him to the complex. He said he saw some 200 Malaysians in the complex during his stay there, where he was made to work 15 hours daily recruiting people for the operations.”

Casino Kingpin She Zhijiang Fights Extradition

Last year, Thai authorities arrested Chinese businessman She Zhijiang on charges of running illegal cross-border gambling operations on Thailand’s borders. She is the chairman of Yatai International Holding Group which owns a $15 billion tourism complex in the Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone including the “Garden of Hell”.

She, a 41-year-old naturalised Cambodian national, is also fighting extradition to China after being convicted of running an illegal lottery business in the Philippines in 2014.

The Chinese government is pursuing hard those who run off-shore gaming businesses that target Chinese gamblers. Whether She is guilty or not, he certainly won’t be the first to have fallen out of political favour and be facing serious consequences.