Virtual gambling in Myanmar's drug
country By Michael Black and
Roland Fields
MONG LA, Shan State -
Myanmar's jungle casinos are open for business
again, only this time with a new media twist that
allows casino owners to dodge an official ban on
their operations and Chinese gamblers to play for
even higher stakes without leaving their homes.
Welcome to the latest incarnation of Mong
La, Myanmar's low-grade rendition of Las Vegas and
a recurring irritant in China-
Myanmar relations. Situated
opposite the town of Dalou in China's Yunnan
province, Mong La in the 1990s established itself
as a Chinese tourism hub for gambling,
prostitution and transsexual cabaret shows - not
to mention rampant money-laundering, Western
officials contend.
Located in Myanmar's
Special Region No 4, the jungle town quickly
emerged as a sinkhole for unknown billions of
Chinese yuan, including funds pilfered by corrupt
Chinese government officials, ill-gotten gains
from Yunnan-based organized crime syndicates, and
the honest earnings of hardcore gamblers.
In January 2005, the town's many flashy
casino-hotels were closed down after Beijing,
irked by reports of corrupt officials squandering
state funds on Myanmar gaming tables, banned their
officials and citizens from traveling to Mong La.
According to people familiar with the
situation, China briefly sent a small number of
troops into the remote region to enforce the
travel ban and pressure casino operators to close
down their operations. At one point, Chinese
officials threatened to cut Mong La's power
supply, which is provided by Yunnan-based
electricity generators. That hasn't deterred
Lin Mingxian, more widely known by the alias Sai
Leun, the town's overlord, who currently commands
a 2,000-3,000-strong militia known as the National
Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA). Sai Leun is
believed to have financed much of the city's
gambling infrastructure in the late 1990s from
cash he allegedly earned in the narcotics trade.
The militia leader is now aggressively
expanding his enterprise into online gaming, a
fast-growing multibillion-US-dollar global
industry that is just now catching on in China. On
April 27, Sai Leun presided over the opening of
seven new Internet-enabled gambling facilities,
specifically designed and outfitted for online
China-based gamers. Another 14 gambling venues are
being carved out of the jungle about 16 kilometers
southwest of Mong La, set idyllically among paddy
fields and wandering water buffalo. Asia Times
Online recently gained a rare on-the-ground
glimpse into the inner workings of Mong La,
arguably one of the most lawless areas of
Southeast Asia. After traveling in a casino
owner's luxury sedan, with Chinese hip-hop music
blaring over the radio, down a winding dirt road
outside of Mong La, ATol saw a newly built casino
sitting completely surrounded by tropical forest.
Inside the two-story stucco-encrusted
building, black leather chairs sit around
immaculate baccarat tables while dead jungle bugs
litter the otherwise spotless new red carpeting.
Suspended above the tables are cameras connected
to the Internet, which allow for scores of remote
Chinese gamblers to play their hands. In the
center of the room sits a giant Buddha statue,
which placidly overlooks the entire operation.
Mong La's new casinos are a curious twist
on Western-style online gaming, which is conducted
solely in cyberspace. From the comfort of their
homes in Beijing, Kunming or Shanghai, Chinese
gamblers watch the tables via a live video feed
over the Internet and place their bets through
agents on location at the jungle casinos. The
arrangement, says the casino operator, allows the
players and casino operators to circumvent recent
Chinese efforts to prevent the outflow of cash
into Myanmar's black markets.
The
transactions also entail a measure of trust.
Online players inside China transfer funds into
the casino operators' China-based bank accounts.
Once the transfer is confirmed, a player logs on
to the casino's website and watches the game from
the cameras above the tables via high-speed
Internet while communicating with his agent via
mobile phone. When the hand is played out, the
remote player can opt to have winnings wired to
his account or alternatively order the agent to
get the cash physically from the casino.
One of the casino operators who spoke with
Asia Times Online claimed to be able to cover up
to US$1 million in bets in this fashion per day.
New online casinos recently opened at nearby Wan
Hsieo, Mong Ma and the tract outside Mong La are
able to handle similar financial traffic, meaning
total daily turnover at Myanmar's online casinos
could hit $20 million, depending, of course, on
how the cards are played. The operator said
investors in mainland China, Hong Kong and
Thailand had contributed funds to the new casinos.
Risk-taker Sai Leun has a long
history of risking life and limb. Prior to
becoming chief of Semi-Autonomous Region No 4, he
was commander of the Communist Party of Burma's
815 War Zone and was widely viewed as one of the
communists' ablest field commanders. He joined the
CPB as a Red Guard volunteer in 1968 alongside Wa
leaders Bao Yuxiang and Li Ziru.
After the
breakup of the CPB in 1989, communist-held
territory was divided into so-called special
regions, each with its own military and political
wings. The Myanmar generals, led then by
military-intelligence chief Lieutenant-General
Khin Nyunt, brokered ceasefire agreements with the
militias, allowing them a large measure of local
autonomy over their territories.
As such,
the remote regions blossomed into major
opium-production and heroin-refining hubs,
affording the region's leaders massive profits on
the illicit-drug trade. For his part, Sai Leun has
claimed to have changed his drug-trafficking ways
and in the late 1990s declared his area of Special
Region No 4 a "drug-free zone" with Dennis
Hastert, Speaker of the US House of
Representatives, senior United Nations officials
and senior Myanmar generals at his side.
Mong La's resurgent gambling operations
have coincided with an improvement in Sai Leun's
health, which deteriorated rapidly after a series
of alleged strokes that coincided with China's
armed intervention at Mong La and more recent
pressure from Myanmar's ruling junta to disarm his
militia. Sai Leun is immensely popular in his
autonomous area, in part because of his unilateral
decision to exempt locals from paying taxes. He
reportedly said during the April 27 opening of the
new casinos, "The only burden you will continue to
bear is supplying us with new recruits for our
army."
The junta's new calls to disarm Sai
Leun's NDAA forces have also raised concerns with
the neighboring and allied 20,000-strong United Wa
State Army (UWSA), the world's largest
narcotics-trafficking militia, which relies
heavily on trafficking routes in Sai Leun's
territory to move its contraband out of Myanmar.
An official in Mong La characterized the
relationship between the NDAA and the UWSA as "not
like brothers but like friends". This friendship
is evident in the UWSA troops who guard and
protect many territories around Mong La and the
many luxury vehicles in the town that sport
license plates marking them as from UWSA
territories. A junta move against Sai Leun could
enflame new armed conflict in the area, his
supporters contend.
At the same time, Sai
Leun has taken precautions against future
disruptions to his gambling businesses -
particularly from China. To preempt a possible
power cut from China, he ordered the construction
of a power plant in a converted sugarcane
refinery, which became operational one year ago
and is capable of independently supplying 30,000
kilowatts of power, well beyond the town's current
needs. Mong La's telecommunication infrastructure,
however, is still controlled by China, which could
represent a pressure point on the casino's
Internet connections.
China is still the
sole importer of the remote region's rubber and
other commodities and, judging by local markets,
the local economy is increasingly reliant on
imports of cheap Chinese manufactures. Sai Leun,
casino operators reckon, has negotiated assurances
from Yunnan officials against another Chinese
crackdown on his new-fangled gambling operations.
However, a Wa official who spoke with Asia Times
Online in early June was less confident, saying,
"The Chinese can change their mind at any time."
Michael Black and Roland
Fields are freelance journalists based in
Chiang Mai, Thailand.
(Copyright 2006
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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