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Four casino licenses, including Jin Bei group, in Sihanoukville have been suspended after failing to comply with regulations and due to suspicions of committing technology fraud.
Ros Phirun, secretary-general of the Commercial Gambling Management Commission of Cambodia (CGMC), told CamboJA News that the suspension was made after multiple notifications, warnings and fines were issued.
“If there is suspicion that a technological fraud site has been set up, a warning will be issued and, if there is no improvement by the deadline, we will fine them, and proceed to suspend [the license],” he said.
“That’s why in this case, we decided to suspend them because we noticed that the sites were suspicious. They also didn’t appear to meet the legal requirements of the license.”
CGMC inspections focused on the premises, arrangement of the equipment, and locations in which casinos operate, Phirun said.
However, he could not provide information on the investigation and arrests pertaining to the suspension, as the investigation and whether arrests were made were “out of his hands”. Further procedures will be conducted by the Interior Ministry official, he added.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Touch Sokhak and Preah Sihanouk provincial spokesperson Kheang Phirum could not be reached for comment.
Following Order No.1 of the Royal Government on the Campaign to Clean Up Technology-Based Fraud, which was issued in July to combat online scams, up to 14 licenses were suspended in Kandal, Bavet city in Svay Rieng, O’Smach town in Oddar Meanchey, and Sihanoukville provinces.
However, a few of the businesses later complied with the conditions, leading to the authorities lifting the suspension. So far, Phirun said, none of the licenses have been revoked.
A Facebook post by CGMC on November 3 stated that authorities suspended and sealed four casinos in Preah Sihanouk in accordance with a decision on October 16, 2025. They include Jin Bei Group owned by Jin Bei Co., Ltd, Jin Bei Casino (owned by Cambodian Heng Xin Real Estate Co., Ltd), and Jin Bei 4 and G.C casinos, both owned by G.C. Media Co., Ltd.
In mid-October, the U.S. and U.K. blacklisted Prince Holding Group, a Cambodian conglomerate, declaring it a transnational criminal organization (TCO), which runs online scam operations built on modern slavery to target Americans and victims in other parts of the world.
The statement mentioned that among the most notorious of Prince Group TCO’s scam compounds, Jin Bei Group, a luxury hotel and casino company, allegedly operates a series of compounds throughout Cambodia linked to reports of extortion, scamming, forced labor, and the gruesome murder of 25-year-old Chinese national Yi Ming Dali in 2023.
In a 2022 takedown of a Chinese money laundering network in New York, the Federal Bureau of Investigation identified 259 U.S. persons who collectively lost $18 million to scammers at Jin Bei Group.
Jacob Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center and analyst on transnational crime in the region, views the casino license revocations as a direct, forced reaction to US-UK sanctions against the Prince Holding Group.
Sims said the Jin Bei casinos were “long-known” centers for transnational fraud and human trafficking, sustained by the “profound complicity of elite state actors”. The complicity involved systematic support from state institutions, like immigration and law enforcement.
He said the sanctions made the “public brands”, Prince or Jin Bei, “toxic”, which would compel the government to distance itself from the criminal network.
While this pressure might lead to significant steps, such as the potential extradition of key actors like Chen Zhi, Sims cautioned that this is “merely a public relations move, not genuine structural reform”. True reform requires accountability for the central regime elites, who enable the broader scam economy, he added.
