Background

The Crown Casino complex is located on the Thai border in Poipet City, Banteay Meanchey, Cambodia. The complex consists of five casinos: Golden, Princess, Kenting (also spelled Genting), Dreamworld, and King. It also includes Kenting Sky Hotel (also known as the HI-SO building), Crown Tower, the CSX building, and a nearby apartment building. It is likely that other properties in the vicinity are also owned by Crown, including the neighbouring CC Tower (profiled here).

Media reports have documented online gambling operations at the site, even though online gambling has been illegal in Cambodia since 2019. Ads can be found on various platforms recruiting online workers for companies located in these facilities, and several deaths of foreign nationals have been reported on the premises (returned to below).

A Thai man who escaped back over the border in late 2022 told Nikkei Asia that the Crown complex hosts various scam operations, including sophisticated law enforcement impersonation scams. He told reporters that scammers have built fake Thai police stations and people posing as police—in some cases former Thai police with genuine uniforms—extort victims by threatening arrest for crimes they did not commit.

In July 2025, the owner of the Crown properties and his family members were targeted by Thai cybercrime police, which secured arrest warrants for him and three of his children, and raided their properties across three provinces in Thailand (returned to below).

Rental ads for office space in crown properties specify that it has a casino license and ‘100% safety’, a common phrase used in property ads targeting online operators who are seeking space that is protected.

Online Gambling

Various websites for the online gambling platform Dream Gaming state that it has operations located at Genting Crown Casino. Other platforms such as SCSbet168 state on their websites that they have a presence at Princess Crown Casino and Genting Crown Casino.

Industry Service Providers

There is a company describing itself as a marketing agency pinned on Google Maps at Crown Tower (a location returned to below). This company presents itself as Malaysian and provides a range of services that are crucial to online operations. Among other things, it sells packages of accounts, followers, and likes on various social media platforms; sets up Gmail accounts that are not linked to phone numbers; opens Thai bank accounts; and sells Thai and Cambodian SIM cards. It also provides search engine optimisation (SEO) services and courses on how to set up online casinos. Its digital marketing trainings include short courses on how to run multiple social media accounts and how to set up accounts to leave fake reviews.

The website of DG Casino, which claimed to be located at Genting Crown Casino (mentioned above) had a section for business services on its website.  This included complete website production, mobile apps, and other customised services.

Recruitment

Posts can be found online seeking to recruit people for ‘customer service’ and online gambling jobs at Crown Poipet. Most posts we found are in English, Khmer, and Thai. Some Khmer language recruitment posts specify that workers are not confined to the property. Many include no indication of what the work actually is and only say that applicants need to be able to type. Most indicate that base salaries are supplemented by commissions.

The post below on a Thai recruitment website states that Genting Princess is ‘a leader in online gaming and entertainment’, located in a seven-storey building behind Crown Resort.

Incidents

In 2016, over 100 Chinese nationals were apprehended at Golden Crown Casino in relation to online scam activity. Thirty-eight of them were subject to Chinese arrest warrants, the rest were released. At that time, Cambodian domestic casino staff told a local rights group that they were not allowed to cross into restricted areas where the arrested people worked.

In 2022, a 19-year-old Thai man fell from the eleventh floor of a Crown property referred to in media reports as ‘CSX building’, with police ruling it a suicide. Local media reports said he was a ‘marketing assistant’. In 2023, a Chinese man described as a manager at an ‘online’ operation was stabbed to death at a Crown property. Media reports state this happened at the Golden Casino, but images show it was at an apartment building close by (marked ‘Crown Apartment’ in the map above). This building is also likely owned by Crown as it houses the Anco Specialized Bank and a media company, both of which are owned by the family that own Crown (returned to below).

In December 2024, Thai Police launched an operation named ‘Blasting the Bridge of Criminals’ focusing on call centre fraud run by criminal networks targeting Thai citizens from bases in Poipet. According to police, three suspicious communication towers were identified in Thailand allegedly transmitting signals to online scam operations across the border. Two of these towers transmitted to the Crown Casino complex and one to the 25-storey CC Tower (profiled here).

In January 2025, a Thai man fell from the 18-storey Crown Tower building and died. At the time, a senior Thai police officer told the press he believed the building ‘serves as the headquarters of an online scam network’ and that Thai police have arrested members of a human smuggling ring who were attempting to traffic Thai nationals to work there. Local media reported that employees from Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, China, and other countries live and work online there. The same report stated that the property owner initially tried to cover up the incident until the video of the man’s death was leaked online. It also noted that ‘the online casino building’ belongs to Senator Kok An, and even municipal police and military police have difficulty entering the facilities.

In February 2025, police arrested two men in Thailand who allegedly worked as scammers in Crown Tower. In 2021, Voice of Democracy (VoD) reported that Thai nationals had shared photos of this building when describing online scam jobs in Cambodia, and one told VoD he was sold by brokers to work for a scam operation there in November 2021.

In February 2025, an Indonesian man was murdered at Golden Crown Casino. Police reported that he had been severely beaten before being thrown from a third-floor window. The man was described as a casino worker by police, as were five Indonesians arrested on suspicion of his murder.

Thai newspaper The Nation reported in 2025 that the HI-SO building (also known as Kenting Sky Hotel) ‘serves as a venue for both a casino and various forms of online gambling operations, with many Thai nationals reportedly working there’.

Amnesty International spoke to two people who said they had been confined at a Crown Casino building for two weeks in early 2025 after being lied to during recruitment. They said they were confined to a single room and guards would frequently enter their room brandishing electric shock batons to threaten people not to consider escaping. The guards would search people’s possessions to make sure they were not hiding personal phones. According to these interviewees, the room was occupied by Thai people, including children who cried during these searches. One said they witnessed a manager and security guards beating another man.

Based on its assessment of the security features of the site and the testimony of these people, Amnesty determined that these survivors were ‘highly likely trafficked to the site for the purpose of identity fraud and they were deprived of their liberty … [and] they were highly likely survivors of slavery.’

Thai Law Enforcement Action

On 8 July 2025, Thai police raided properties linked to Kok An in an operation they dubbed ‘Operation Shut Down Mule Accounts, Hunt Cambodian Capital’. Police searched 19 properties across Bangkok, Samut Prakan, and Chonburi provinces, seizing 27 million baht (US$831,000) in cash, as well as luxury cars.

According to Thailand’s Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB), on 7 July the court approved a warrant for Kok An’s arrest on suspicion of supporting scam operations based in buildings he owns in Poipet. Four properties were identified: Crown Casino, the HI-SO building, and unnamed 18-storey and 25-storey buildings. Although not named in reports, Crown Tower and CC Tower sit adjacent to the Crown complex, and are 18 and 25 storeys tall, respectively.

The CCIB said scam centres in these buildings have lured many Thais into opening mule accounts to assist in the movement of stolen funds, laundered money, and forcibly detained people. Thai authorities posted wanted notices for Kok An at various locations in Aranyaprathet, the district of Sa Kaeo province that borders Poipet.

Among the properties searched on 8 July was the house of Kok An’s daughter, named in Thai media as Juri Khlongkijjakol (some spell this ‘Juree’). Further raids were conducted on 15 July targeting another seven locations. This included residential and company properties, some owned by Kok An’s daughter Phu Cherlin. Phu Cherlin was married to Rithy Samnang, who until his death in 2022 was reported to be connected to multiple online crime sites in Sihanoukville.

This second round of raids occurred after the Thai criminal court issued arrest warrants for Kok An’s children, named in reports as Juri Khlongkijjakol, ‘Kittisak’, and Phu Cherlin. All three hold Thai ID cards, and the Interior Ministry’s Department of Administration has set up a panel to determine if they were issued inappropriately and if any officials were wrongfully involved. Following these raids, the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau said it had frozen over 1.1 billion baht (US$33.7 million) in assets to prevent overseas transfers. In August it was reported that Thailand’s Anti-Money Laundering Office was conducting an expedited examination of assets linked to Kok An.

We have not been able to find any public statement from Kok An responding to the warrants or the accusations made against him and his family. One Cambodian Government spokesperson called the actions a ‘political move’, another called them ‘revenge’.

In October it was reported that Thai authorities were investigating the Thai citizenship of three of Kok An’s children. In November, the Department of Special Investigation claimed it had found that their Thai citizenship was obtained using fraudulent birth registrations and therefore revoked.

Which Actors and Companies Have Been Linked to Crown Casino Poipet?

Crown Casino is owned by Senator Kok An. Kok An is a powerful Cambodian ruling party senator and businessperson with a portfolio of companies active in import and distribution, casinos, banking, construction, real estate, internet, water supply, power generation and supply, among others.

Kok An holds the honorific title of okhna and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Cambodian Oknha Association. The goal of the association is to ‘promote the values of the okhna’s honor and ensure the moral dignity and strong solidarity of the okhna as a basis for active participation in the construction and development of the economy.’ Kok An is a frequent donor to the Cambodian Red Cross, most recently donating US$50,000 on World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day in May 2025.

The license for the Crown Resort Casino in Poipet was granted in 2022 and is held by Anco Brothers Co., Ltd., which Kok An chairs. Kok An’s family members also hold executive and management positions at companies he chairs, and collectively the family controls or has interests in more than 50 firms in Cambodia, as well as an unknown number of companies in Thailand.

Kok An has also been linked to other sites where cybercrime, human trafficking, and forced criminality have been recorded, including the Crown Technology Park in Sihanoukville (profiled here) and Crown Casino in Bavet (profiled here). He has also attended various events linked to other reported online crime sites to which he does not have documented corporate links, including the Kaibo (profiled here), Jinshui (profiled here), K99 Triumph City (profiled here), and Nanhai (profiled here) compounds in Sihanoukville. Members of his family and extended family also have links to the actors and companies behind these operations.

Location of Crown Casino Poipet

Crown Casino Poipet in the News

2025

17 November: ‘Kok An’s Children Obtained Thai Citizenship by Fraud, Run 5 Businesses’, Khaosod English. Link.

23 October: ‘DSI Investigates Birth Certificates of Kok An’s Children’, Thai PBS World. Link.

26 August: Chairith Yonpiam, ‘Amlo Examines Assets Linked to Kok An’, Bangkok Post. Link.

15 July: ‘Thai Cyber Police Raid Properties of Kok An’s Children to Seize Assets’, Khaosod English. Link.

15 July: Wassayos Ngamkham, ‘More Raids As Police Seek to Arrest Kok An’s Children’, Bangkok Post. Link.

15 July: ‘Court Issues Warrants for Kok An’s Children as Police Raid 7 Locations’, The Nation. Link.

11 July: ‘Fugitive Cambodian Alleged Scam Boss Kok An Wanted by Thai Police’, Thai PBS World. Link.

8 July: Kuch Sikol, ‘Thai Police Raid Properties Linked to Cambodian Tycoon Kok An in Online Scam Crackdown’, Kiripost. Link.

8 July: Wassayos Ngamkham, ‘Arrest Warrant Out for Cambodian Casino Owner’, Bangkok Post. Link.

26 June: Amnesty International, ‘I Was Someone Else’s Property’: Slavery, Human Trafficking And Torture In Cambodia’s Scamming Compounds. Link.

8 July: ‘Kok An: The Kingpin of Poipet Linked to Cambodian Former Leader’, The Nation. Link.

8 July: Dominic Faulder & Danielle Keeton-Olsen, ‘Thailand Strikes at Cambodia with Raids on Tycoon Kok An’s Properties’, Nikkei Asia. Link.

5 February: Buth Reaksmey Kongkea, ‘5 Indonesians Charged with Murder’, Khmer Times. Link.

4 February: Wassayos Ngamkham, ‘Two Men Arrested for Alleged B4m AI-aided Scam Against Beauty Queen’, Bangkok Post. Link.

3 February: ‘Crown Casino Indonesian Man Fell to His Death: The Deceased Was Beaten Before Falling from the Building, and the Police Arrested 5 Indonesian Suspects’, 柬中时报[Cambodia-China Times]. Link.

3 Feb: ‘A Man Fell to His Death in Crown Casino and Was Beaten by Five Suspects’, 58cam. Link.

13 January: ‘Time to Tackle Scam Bases’, The Nation. Link.

11 January: Wassayos Ngamkham and Piyarach Chongcharoen, ‘Death Plunge Spurs Gang Blitz’, The Nation. Link.

9 January: ‘Thai Man’s Death in Poipet Highlights Alleged Scam Operation’, Thai PBS World. Link.

9 January: ‘Man Falls to His Death from a Building in Poipet’, The Nation. Link.

9 January: SBM Press Unit, ‘Thai Man Falls from 18-story Genting Casino Building, Dies Instantly, Amid Suspicions… Could It Be a Murder Case?’, SBM. Link.

2024

28 December: ‘Thaksin Makes a Strong Statement: The Root of Telecom Fraud Lies in Cambodia and Myanmar, and I Will Completely Eradicate Them Next Year’, PASA News. Link.

28 December: ‘Police and NBTC Raid Sa Kaeo Border to Inspect Location of Call Center Gang at 25-storey Building as Thaksin Indicated’, Khaosod Online. Link.

28 December: ‘Thai Police Launch Phone Scam Crackdown at Cambodia Border’, Khaosod English. Link.

2023

12 October: ‘A Chinese Man Working at the Golden Casino in Poipet Was Stabbed Multiple Times by Staff, Resulting in His Death’, Fresh News. Link.

5 April: Caleb Quinley, ‘“Hell All Over Again”: The Frontline of an Expanding Human Trafficking Crisis’, Vice. Link.

2022

4 March: Mech Dara, ‘Thai National Found Dead at Poipet Casino’, Voice of Democracy. Link.

4 March: ‘Foreign National Jumps from 11th Story of Casino in Apparent Suicide’, Khmer Times. Link.

3 March: ‘A Thai Company Marketing Assistant Fell from the 11th Floor of a Building’, Koh Santepheap. Link.

2021

28 December: Jintamas Saksornchai, ‘Lured with Promise of Jobs, Thai Nationals Detained, Sold to Scam Operations in Cambodia’, Voice of Democracy. Link.

2016

7 March: Taing Vida, ‘Chinese to be Deported for VoIP Scam’, Khmer Times. Link.

4 March: Khouth Sophak Chakrya, ‘Accomplices Sought after Bust of Chinese Internet Scam’, The Phnom Penh Post. Link.

3 March: Hour Hum and Roseanne Gerin, ‘Cambodian Authorities Arrest Chinese Involved in Extortion Scheme’, Radio Free Asia. Link.

3 March: Khouth Sophak Chakrya, ‘Chinese Nationals Arrested in Casino Raid’, The Phnom Penh Post. Link.

3 March: Saing Soenthrith, ‘105 Chinese Arrested at Senator’s Poipet Casino’, Cambodia Daily. Link.

2 March: Taing Vida, ‘70 Chinese Nationals Arrested for Alleged Cybercrimes’, Khmer Times. Link.

Note: If any links are down or blocked, they may be available on the Wayback Machine.