A Reuters investigation has found that buildings inside a casino complex on the Cambodia-Thailand border were leased to a Chinese-run scam and human trafficking operation, with several rooms disguised as police stations and bank offices to deceive victims worldwide.
The report, published July 15, identified the Lim Heng Group as the landlord. A lease dated March 2024 shows the company, which owns the Royal Hill casino opposite Chong Chom in Surin province near O Smach, rented buildings on the same grounds at rates far above market value. Neither Royal Hill nor Lim Heng Group responded to Reuters’ questions.
A human rights lawyer in Cambodia said a property owner who knowingly allowed such use of their site could face prosecution. Lim Heng Group was reportedly alerted to possible trafficking there as early as September 2024, after suing two Cambodian outlets that had reported foreigners were being held captive inside the casino. One editor maintained the reporting was accurate but removed it on legal advice.
Deputy National Police Chief Thatchai Pitaneelaboot, who is overseeing the Thai investigation, said Chinese criminal gangs were running the fraud inside Royal Hill.
Rent far above market rate
Reuters reviewed a lease showing a Chinese tenant paid US$200,000 a month for three buildings, more than eight times the roughly US$25,000 that comparable buildings in upscale Phnom Penh command. Thai officials said at least four buildings inside the barbed wire fenced compound were used for criminal activity. Thai forces took control of the site after striking Royal Hill during a border clash with Cambodia in December 2025, saying the casino had been used as a base for drone and sniper attacks, a claim Cambodia’s government denies.
Lim Heng holds the honorific Oknha, a Cambodian royal title roughly equivalent to a duke, and donated US$20,000 to the Cambodian military last year, according to a business association he belongs to. Analysts say Southeast Asia’s scam centres, which cost Americans an estimated US$10 billion in 2024, typically need protection from people in power to operate at this scale.
A worker’s escape
Thai security officials estimate the compound once held around 3,000 people. One woman, Pornpen, said she was lured by a 2022 Facebook job advertisement before being forced into a scam ring impersonating police officers, watched over by guards with batons. She later escaped. A Thai court has since sentenced a Thai man to five years in prison for voluntarily working as a low level call centre employee at Royal Hill, reported MGR Online.
The story Cambodian tycoon rents casino space to scam gang as seen on Thaiger News.
