Posted by drug-watch-international@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Maggie Petito (of DWI) – Subject: TelegraphArticle12-22-25

Opening comments by Maggie Petito of DWI: the following is a report from The Telegraph, UK on transnational multi-purpose/multi-crime rackets/cartels. The report confirms much reliance on bitcoin/crypto to avoid detection. An FBI agent in Baltimore over a year ago told me that several of these Chinese-backed crime centers have located in rural India and now several in Pakistan and across Africa with a few in Mexico. I have no additional facts. -Maggie Petito

And a correspondent of Maggie added this comment: Subject: Re: TheAtlanticArticle12-20-25 – Maggie, You are correct in stating that there are Americans cooperating with the Chinese.  I found several real estate transactions between Americans and Chinese in rural Colorado that are very suspect and could even represent a form of money laundering.   The big problem is that these shady transactions are being overlooked or just outright ignored. Best, Jay

TELEGRAPH ARTICLE –  by Sarah Newey – 12.22.2025 :

The ‘special economic zone’ on the banks of the Mekong river has become famed for boundless criminality. Has its luck run out?

Newey reports “ The Telegraph has travelled to `Sin City’, a lawless zone in the Golden Triangle, where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet. Set up almost 20 years ago by Zhao Wei, a Chinese gambling magnate, the `special economic zone’ on the banks of the Mekong river has become famed for boundless criminality. The Zhao Wei Transnational Criminal Organisation (TCO) – as the operation is known to the US authorities – is allegedly involved in the illicit drug trade, human trafficking, bribery, wildlife trafficking and other forms of organised crime… In 2018, the US Treasury placed sanctions on it for alleged involvement in laundering money and assisting in the storage and distribution of heroin, methamphetamine, and other narcotics. Then in 2023, the UK followed up with sanctions on Zhao and his wife, Su, for their links to human trafficking and forced criminality.

`Wei is the owner and president of Kings Romans Group which controls the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone,’ reads the UK deposition. `Therefore, he bears responsibility for, supported and obtained benefit from the trafficking of individuals to the Zone, where they were forced to work as scammers targeting English-speaking individuals and subject to physical abuse and further cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.’

`Chatting companies’ is the euphemism locals use for the brutal scam centres described in the UK sanctions deposition quoted above.

Poor locals and migrant workers from across the developing world are trafficked or tricked into joining the `chatting companies’, which swindle billions from unsuspecting individuals and businesses across the globe.

Schemes – often aided with AI – include romance scams, cryptocurrency cons, impersonation schemes, long haul fraud and cyber crime.

Even as recently as August 2024, Sin City was booming. A census put the overall population at around 120,000 people, while karaoke bars, casinos and hotels were full and construction of new buildings continued apace.

At its height, it is estimated that roughly 300,000 people – many of them victims of human trafficking – were working in scam centres across the wider Golden Triangle region, including some 85,000 in Sin City and Laos.

Aided by armed groups and corrupt officials, the criminal syndicates operating these centres have made billions. In Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos combined, at least $43.8 billion (£33.8bn) is being stolen yearly, according to a report from the US Institute of Peace.

There is little doubt that on his way up Zhao Wei benefited from support from Beijing and close ties to the Laos government.

Only last year he was awarded a state medal for “contributions to policing” by the authorities in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, while local media have reported on friendships with the political elite. The Laotian authorities did not respond to Telegraph requests for comment.

`The evidence is just overwhelming that these are state-sponsored criminal industries,’ said Jacob Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Centre and expert on cybercrime in the Mekong. `The level of collaboration is historically unprecedented, in terms of the scale and the volume of money passing through these industries…’ `While we’re seeing less of the ‘dungeon’ set up with overt trafficking and torture, this is still a very abusive system… You don’t have a strong hand when a crime syndicate has taken your passport.’

There is also little sign of a real plan to systematically dismantle Sin City or Zhao Wei’s Kings Romans Group.”

Inside ‘Sin city’ 

The gamblers at the baccarat table have lost all track of time. Outside, night has given way to day, but inside the game of chance rolls on.

It’s a gaudy scene. The players – mostly Chinese and Thais, with a handful of Russians – smoke continuously, their bleary eyes fixed on the hands of an immaculately dressed croupier as she deals yet another round of cards. They all hoard chips denominated in Chinese Yuan, though the biggest pile now sits with the House.

As we look on, an unsmiling security guard eyes the Telegraph suspiciously. “There are no Western games here,” he says cryptically, pausing next to us on his patrol of the lush casino floor. The hint taken, we nod politely and get up to go.

Outside, a stretch Hummer and three Polaris Slingshots are parked by a side entrance, while a pair of gleaming Rolls Royce take pride of place in the forecourt. Across a waterway is a vast Venetian-style plaza, which looks like an abandoned set from a Hollywood fairytale.

The Telegraph has travelled to “Sin City”, a lawless zone in the Golden Triangle, where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet. Set up almost 20 years ago by Zhao Wei, a Chinese gambling magnate, the “special economic zone” on the banks of the Mekong river has become famed for boundless criminality.

The Zhao Wei Transnational Criminal Organisation (TCO) – as the operation is known to the US authorities – is allegedly involved in the illicit drug trade, human trafficking, bribery, wildlife trafficking and other forms of organised crime.

In 2018, the US Treasury placed sanctions on it for alleged involvement in laundering money and assisting in the storage and distribution of heroin, methamphetamine, and other narcotics. Then in 2023, the UK followed up with sanctions on Zhao and his wife, Su, for their links to human trafficking and forced criminality.

“Wei is the owner and president of Kings Romans Group which controls the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone,” reads the UK deposition. “Therefore, he bears responsibility for, supported and obtained benefit from the trafficking of individuals to the Zone, where they were forced to work as scammers targeting English-speaking individuals and subject to physical abuse and further cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.”

Much of this illicit activity is said to be conducted through the Kings Romans gambling group – the flagship casino of which we have just departe ‘The chatting companies have left’: If you are thinking Sin City sounds like a real-life Bond villain’s hideout you would not be wrong. Yet its golden facade now seems to be fracturing.

Less than a year ago, the streets, bars and brothels of this enclave were a hive of activity. But today the 10,000 hectare stretch of land, in which Zhoa is estimated to have invested $3.5bn since acquiring it in 2007, is all but a ghost town, its illicit industries relocating to new ground.

When the Telegraph visited ahead of Christmas, the streets were eerily quiet and new high rise buildings stood empty, their development stalled. At night, the faux-Venetian playground was cloaked in darkness, while the turreted casino – usually illuminated – had only a few lights on.

“They do not turn on those lights,” said a receptionist at Kings Romans casino and hotel, where we were able to book rooms at a discounted rate. “It’s to save the cost, the economy is not so good. It’s been bad for two months.”

Later that night at a strip of bars where images of scantily clad women are plastered across nightclub walls, locals told the same story.

“There is almost no one here because the situation is not good,” said one woman in her 20s, gesturing with long, claw-like nails. “I don’t know much about it, but I saw the police coming in and checking [buildings]. It was not so long ago.”

A barman adds: “It’s quiet because the chatting companies have left.” “Chatting companies” is the euphemism locals use for the brutal scam centres described in the UK sanctions deposition quoted above.

Since the pandemic, the enclave has become the global epicentre for this new type of industrialised telephone and internet fraud.

Poor locals and migrant workers from across the developing world are trafficked or tricked into joining the “chatting companies”, which swindle billions from unsuspecting individuals and businesses across the globe.

Schemes – often aided with AI – include romance scams, cryptocurrency cons, impersonation schemes, long haul fraud and cyber crime.

Even as recently as August 2024, Sin City was booming. A census put the overall population at around 120,000 people, while karaoke bars, casinos and hotels were full and construction of new buildings continued apace.

At its height, it is estimated that roughly 300,000 people – many of them victims of human trafficking – were working in scam centres across the wider Golden Triangle region, including some 85,000 in Sin City and Laos.

Aided by armed groups and corrupt officials, the criminal syndicates operating these centres have made billions. In Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos combined, at least $43.8 billion (£33.8bn) is being stolen yearly, according to a report from the US Institute of Peace.

The scam centres in Sin City and Laos alone were estimated to be generating $10.9bn (£8.76bn) in illicit revenue annually, it said.

But now things are changing. The criminal boom in Sin City has turned to bust as global regulatory authorities, including the Chinese have moved in.

‘State-sponsored criminal industries’: There is little doubt that on his way up Zhao Wei benefited from support from Beijing and close ties to the Laos government.

Only last year he was awarded a state medal for “contributions to policing” by the authorities in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, while local media have reported on friendships with the political elite. The Laotian authorities did not respond to Telegraph requests for comment.

“The evidence is just overwhelming that these are state-sponsored criminal industries,” said Jacob Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Centre and expert on cybercrime in the Mekong. “The level of collaboration is historically unprecedented, in terms of the scale and the volume of money passing through these industries.” But across the Mekong, efforts to crack down on the scam centres have been ramping up – with police raids, sanctions and even military action.

The junta in Myanmar, under pressure from China, recently bombed and demolished buildings used for fraud in two notorious scam centres called KK Park and Shwe Kokko, for instance.

International pressure is driving the change. Across Europe, America, the Middle East and even China itself too many citizens have been either defrauded or trafficked for the problem to be ignored.

In October, the US and UK sanctioned 146 entities and individuals connected to the Prince Group, another “sprawling cyberfraud empire”, this one based in Cambodia. Its chairman, Chen Zhi, was among those targeted.

“The leader of the network, Chen Zhi, and his web of enablers have incorporated their businesses in the British Virgin Islands and invested in the London property market, including a £12 million mansion on Avenue Road in North London, a £100 million office building on Fenchurch Street in the City of London, and seventeen flats on New Oxford Street and in Nine Elms in South London”, said the Home Office. “The sanctions will freeze these businesses and properties with immediate effect, locking Chen and his network out of the UK’s financial system”.

The Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper added: “The masterminds behind these horrific scam centres are ruining the lives of vulnerable people and buying up London homes to store their money.

“Together with our US allies, we are taking decisive action to combat the growing transnational threat posed by this network – upholding human rights, protecting British nationals and keeping dirty money off our streets”.

Mr Sims of Harvard said the action being taken by the US and others was changing the calculus of the fraudsters. “Instead of just raiding and performatively arresting low level perpetrators, you’re actually going after the kingpins,” he said.

Richard Horsey, a senior Myanmar analyst at Crisis Group, agreed. Noting the action of the Myanmar government, he said: “Claims of destruction have run ahead of the dynamite, but there’s a definite intent by the regime to demonstrate – to China, to the US, to the Thais and to everyone else – that they’re trying to do something serious about this problem. Even though the military are themselves complicit in some of it.”

“The same thing has happened in Laos – there was a crackdown because the scam centre became too high profile.”

‘Things may not be going well for Zhao’s criminal network’

As China has boomed, it has exported criminality to many areas, like most expansionist powers. Gambling and prostitution in particular have proliferated across the Pacific and large parts of Asia and Africa as Chinese businesses and entrepreneurs have set up there.

Such criminality is not typically sanctioned by Beijing but nor is it actively moved against until it becomes a diplomatic impediment.

Now, it seems, Zhao and the Kings Romans Group have crossed this line. Last August, just eight months after the first round of UK sanctions targeting Sin City’s scam centres, he appeared at a ceremony with a local governor and ordered all illegal online activity in the Special Economic Zone to be dismantled within a fortnight.

By December this year, some 900 people working in the scam centres had been arrested and repatriated by Laos authorities, according to the Mekong Risk Monitor published last week.

“Things may not be going well for Zhao’s criminal network,” according to Jason Tower, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and co-author of the Mekong Risk Monitor.

Zhao at a rare public appearance in 2024 Credit: SOPA Images

Not only have Zhao and his family been largely absent from public appearances, but the entire executive leadership of the Special Economic Zone have left their jobs. Census data suggests the city’s population has halved, to 65,300 people, while there was another crackdown targeting scam compounds there between the 2 and 18 November.

“At present, the strategy of the Kings Romans Group seems to be to work with authorities in a ‘campaign style’ to advance what are portrayed as crackdowns,” wrote Mr Towers. “This means that scam syndicates need to hand over several hundred individuals per crackdown and spend significant amounts of time operating outside of the zone.”

“The police raided there,” confirmed a rickshaw driver in Sin City, pointing at a padlocked brown high rise as we cruised through the outskirts of town. “A lot of African and South Asian people recruited to run cyber scams used to live here, but it’s all shut now.”

‘This is still a very abusive system’: So what now for Sin City and the scam centres across the Mekong?

Most experts are not optimistic and say the current enforcement actions are unlikely to lead to lasting change. For the most part they are just displacing the problem, they say.

“We’re seeing a metamorphisation of the scam centres,” said Mr Horsey of the Crisis Group. “They’re constantly evolving across the region … after a crackdown, we see them dislodged to other areas.

“At the moment, there’s a sense that the big hotspots are expensive to build but too easy to shut down if there’s a will. So a tonne of the operators, especially smaller ones, are spreading to office buildings or guest houses in new areas.”

One such area is Vientiane, some 400 miles downstream from the Golden Triangle. Here taxi drivers told the Telegraph that the last six months had seen a surge in people from South Asia and Africa who said they were in Laos to work rather than travel. The city’s casinos are also booming. “The general trend is that scam centres are now trying to blend in and not be obvious,” said Mr Horsey. “There’s always been a range, from really sordid operators who treat their staff as prisoners, to those who let them do whatever they want when not on shift.

“While we’re seeing less of the ‘dungeon’ set up with overt trafficking and torture, this is still a very abusive system… You don’t have a strong hand when a crime syndicate has taken your passport.”

There is also little sign of a real plan to systematically dismantle Sin City or Zhao Wei’s Kings Romans Group.

“The primary issue is that Laos and Chinese authorities continue to rely on the Kings Romans Group as a partner to address problems,” Mr Tower wrote in the Mekong Risk Monitor.

Within Sin City, locals hope things will bounce back. They believe they just have to ride out a tough few months – and whispers are circulating of a plan to both reverse the exodus.

“I heard at the end of the year, there will be another investment project … they say they will bring something big,” said a restaurant owner. “The business will be back.”

And it’s true that in Telegram channels seen by the Telegraph, there are a near-constant stream of posts advertising jobs as models, developers, receptionists and “chat support specialists” in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Some mention “chatting platforms” or “call centres” obliquely – others more explicitly reference “scms”. But for now at least, Sin City is down, if not out.

In its intricately decorated version of “Chinatown”, a distressed monkey paces a small, rusting cage while a Porsche without number plates has stopped outside a gold shop.

We take a seat at a hotpot restaurant for a bite to eat before heading back across the Mekong to Thailand. After taking our food order, the owner offers to procure “girls” should we want them later that night. Prices start at 800 yuan (£85) for a Laotian woman for two hours, rising to 1,400 if we prefer someone Vietnamese. We make our excuses and leave.

Source: www.drugwatch.org     drug-watch-international@googlegroups.com

 

by Email From Maggie Petito – 19.11.25

Neither the casino nor the four defendants admitted to knowingly laundering money for cartels or anyone else. But some investigators said that their actions helped bad actors hide the source of their illicit money.

“Federal laws that regulate the reporting of financial transactions are in place to detect and stop illegal activities,” said Carissa Messick, the special agent in charge for the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigations unit in Las Vegas, in a statement at the time. “Deliberately avoiding Bank Secrecy Act requirements is a form of money laundering.”

In a statement to CNN, Wynn Resorts said the company fully cooperated with the investigation and “immediately terminated the few employees involved because their actions violated the Company’s compliance program.”

“Wynn is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity, compliance, and regulatory responsibility,” the Wynn casino said. “We accept responsibility for the historical deficiencies identified, have taken meaningful remediation, and are dedicated to ensuring that such failures do not reoccur.”

The cases of the four defendants that helped lead to Wynn’s historic settlement show how casinos have profited from having dirty money come through their coffers, and how drug cartels seek to legitimize the huge profits they generate from the sale of fentanyl and other drugs through legal gambling establishments, experts and investigators said. One prosecutor in Zhang’s case estimated that at least a hundred million dollars annually was being laundered through American casinos.

“Forty-eight hours ago, that was the proceeds of fentanyl,” said Chris Urben, a former assistant special agent in charge with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Operations Division, speaking about some of the cash that Zhang and others moved through the Wynn and other casinos.

Although federal regulators and authorities have cracked down on banks and demanded tighter scrutiny on the cash deposits favored by cartels, regulators have been slower to apply that same pressure to casinos — despite their financial interest in looking the other way or even facilitating these crimes.

“They haven’t received as much scrutiny as financial institutions have in the past,” said Ian Messenger, founder and CEO of the Association of Certified Gaming Compliance Specialists in Toronto. “That is changing, with cases like Wynn.”

Hunger for cash

The schemes to move illicit money at Vegas casinos traced back to a simple problem: High-rolling gamblers from China — who are known to drop up to a million dollars on a single hand of blackjack — were having problems accessing their funds in the US.

A corruption crackdown by the Chinese government starting around 2016 led to stricter enforcement of rules prohibiting individuals from taking more than $50,000 a year out of the country.

How Chinese gamblers get illicit US cash to use at casinos

When big-money Chinese gamblers can’t get enough American cash to use at casinos because of Chinese government restrictions, they sometimes turn to a black market for the money. Here’s how middlemen in the US convert money from drug cartels and other illicit businesses into cash for them:

An “underground banker” drives around Las Vegas collecting money from customers who may have earned cash from illicit means – ranging from drug cartels to prostitution rings.

The underground banker pays them back for the cash by transferring the same amount, minus his fee, to a Chinese bank account, circumventing US safeguards.

A high stakes Chinese gambler arrives in Vegas, but he has a problem: He legally can’t bring more than $50,000 annually into the U.S. under Chinese law, and needs more to gamble.

The casino wants the gambler’s business. So a casino host calls the underground banker and asks him to bring cash, according to US authorities.

In a private room at the casino, the underground banker gives cash to the high-stakes Chinese gambler.

The Chinese gambler pays the underground banker back, plus a fee, by transferring Chinese money to a Chinese bank account — again evading US scrutiny.

The gambler takes that cash, which may have started with drug cartels, prostitutes and other illicit businesses, and turns it into chips at the casino.

For US authorities, this rule has created supersized demand among well-heeled Chinese visitors and expats. When they need large sums for purchasing real estate, buying a luxury car or other big expenses, many turn to underground bankers.

These illicit bankers, who are also often Chinese, have turned to criminal gangs such as Mexican drug cartels and prostitution rings, law enforcement officials told CNN.

In exchange for cash, the cartels and other providers are paid back through Chinese bank accounts that face no US financial scrutiny.

In recent years, these Chinese middlemen have essentially become the go-to bankers for the biggest players in the US drug trade, authorities have said, wresting control from Latin American interests in what has amounted to a bloodless coup.

And high-stakes Chinese gamblers quickly became important players in the financial scheme, authorities say.

The big break

In late 2018, Dave Mesler, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation unit, got an intriguing tip from employees at another Las Vegas casino.

They’d noticed a strange pattern: A man would walk into the casino carrying a satchel and then would meet a host — a casino employee in charge of keeping high-value gamblers happy. The host would summon a high-roller, and the trio would disappear to a private setting like a hotel room. Then the man who came with the satchel would depart, often without having gambled.

Staff at the casino, which Mesler confirmed was not Wynn but declined to identify due to DOJ policy, eventually notified law enforcement about a handful of men all following the same pattern.

“The casino didn’t quite figure out what they were up to,” Mesler said, but “they realized these guys were up to something.”

Mesler and other investigators soon learned the IDs of four of the men: Lei Zhang, Bing Han, Liang Zhou and Fan Wang. All were Chinese nationals in their late 30s or 40s living in Las Vegas. (None of the men responded to CNN’s multiple efforts to reach them. )

Mesler, who at the time led the IRS’s Las Vegas Financial Crimes Task Force, subpoenaed their cell records. The results excited him so much he flew from his office in Las Vegas to San Diego to meet with a federal prosecutor.

“I found that these guys were talking to Wynn casino hosts multiple times a day every day,” Mesler said. “Hundreds a week. … I mean, I don’t even talk to my girlfriend this much.”

Investigators had already been interested in Wynn, a high-end resort with a sleek glass design with locations worldwide, including Macao – the only place in China where gambling is legal.

Investigators had earlier looked into bank accounts they suspected were being used by drug cartels to fund gambling at the casino, DEA sources said, but none of those probes led to any charges being filed. (Wynn said in its statement that the accounts were “established to allow out-of-state guests to make normal and customary payments to the Company” and that the casino followed all proper financial reporting procedures.)

Mesler believed something bigger was afoot with the new evidence involving the four Chinese men. “It was happening now – it didn’t happen years ago,” Mesler said. “This breathed a lot of new energy into the case.”

Mesler started reviewing surveillance footage from Wynn, and sure enough, the four men were making regular visits with casino hosts and high-rolling gamblers there.

With the evidence mounting in early 2019, other agencies joined the case: the US attorney’s office in San Diego, the DEA, the Department of Homeland Security and even the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Through surveillance footage, undercover assignments and interviews with informants and the defendants, investigators were able to piece together a more complete picture of the sophisticated scheme.

Wynn casino and Mexican cartels

Investigators began watching as the four underground bankers or couriers working for them drove in and around Las Vegas and Los Angeles making cash pickups, law enforcement sources told CNN.

“They would take cash from anybody that had cash they didn’t want to deposit in a bank account for various reasons,” Mesler said.

The men would then shuttle the ill-gotten cash to Wynn and other casinos in Vegas, where they would meet with a casino host and an elite gambler from China for a hand-off.

“It didn’t always happen in a hotel room, but it could. It could happen in the hotel bathroom as well,” said Peter Fuller, a former detective in the Las Vegas police department who worked on the case. “It also happened in vehicles.”

Phone data seized from the four suspects showed they were frequently communicating with Wynn casino hosts, said Urben, the former DEA official — but also that some of their communications traced back to Mexican cartel operatives. He added that other intelligence, including surveillance and post-arrest interviews, also pointed to cartels as a significant source of cash.

CNN obtained an unclassified internal DEA document, which reported that agents suspected money launderers were feeding cash from Latin American drug cartels to Chinese gamblers, who were “reliable customers to purchase cash drug proceeds.” The intelligence report, which was shared with field offices across the country in 2021, also linked Vegas casino hosts with members of US-based drug trafficking organizations “seeking to launder drug proceeds.”

“The majority and the driver of this was Mexican cartel proceeds,” said Urben, who now works as a managing director at Nardello & Co., a private global investigations firm that specializes in corporate matters. “When I say that, I mean fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine.”

A Homeland Security investigator, who worked closely on the case and asked that his name not be used out of safety concerns, said much of the cash being sold by underground bankers to Chinese gamblers in Vegas at the time appeared to come from cartels.

It’s unclear how much the casino hosts or Chinese gamblers knew about the source of the money when coordinating the transactions, officials said.

But they all knew enough to be secretive about the activity, the Homeland Security investigator said, “so they must have known they were doing something bad.”

After using a Chinese social-messaging and mobile-payment app called WeChat to make a quick money transfer, the gambler would often take the cash, bring it inside the casino and exchange it for chips, officials said.

The end result was that everybody got what they wanted. The casino host got the golden-goose gambler to play at Wynn, the gambler received the cash, the “third-party” source was able to replace their dirty cash with a clean deposit in a financial institution, and the underground banker got his fee, all without having to send hefty dollar amounts across international borders.

In May 2019, investigators on the case carried out the first sting operation. It targeted Zhang.

Zhang had been lured to a Las Vegas casino hotel room by an undercover federal agent who called the money mover posing as a wealthy gambler looking to obtain $150,000 in cash.

As he made his way through the casino floor to the hotel room, agents working with Homeland Security Investigations waited in an adjoining room. Zhang had been instructed to show up alone, but he came with a woman. Zhang knocked on the door and the undercover agent answered.

The agents barged in.

“He looked very cool and suave,” said the Homeland Security investigator. “Cool sunglasses and hair. … Very Vegas.” The agents opened the satchel and discovered four brick-sized stacks of cash, the investigator said.

The woman, who had a handful of cell phones on her, was a “madam” who ran an escort service, he said. Two-thirds of the cash belonged to her, and she wanted to make sure the transaction went smoothly. The agents seized the cash; the woman was not arrested, he said.

That bust, he added, helped lead investigators to the other three suspects, who were arrested in similar stings throughout Las Vegas that summer.

The four defendants

With the evidence collected by Mesler and others, Zhang, Han, Zhou and Wang were charged in federal court between May and September of 2019 with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.

Prosecutors said their scheme was just a fraction of the illicit money moving through casinos.

“The total magnitude of this problem, especially in Las Vegas, catering to high-roller Chinese gamblers who come into Las Vegas without easy access to United States cash, is certainly in the nine figures on an annual basis,” said prosecutor Mark Pletcher during Zhang’s sentencing hearing in 2020. “We’re talking about a problem in the hundred-million dollar range” yearly, he added.

In court, the defendants — who had all emigrated from China — described how they’d been drawn into the underground banking schemes because they needed money to help care for children or elderly parents, in a country where they had few connections and spoke little English.

By fall of 2020, all four pleaded guilty to a lesser crime than money laundering: operating an “unlicensed money transmitting business.” Investigators told CNN the money-laundering charge would require proving that the defendants themselves knew the source of the dirty cash they were bringing into the casino.

But another prosecutor, Daniel Silva, told the court that the activity “totally undermines the United States’ anti-money laundering laws.” The networks, he added, “are a huge, huge problem in the United States” and “will not be tolerated.”

Zhou, now 42, was ordered to repay the government $446,000. He was sentenced to six months in prison. The lightest sentence went to Wang, who received three months in home detention and was ordered to repay $225,000 for his role in the scheme.

A former professional poker player who also worked in the “junket” industry that brought Chinese gamblers to Las Vegas, Wang, now about 43, was charged last year with lying about his felony conviction while trying to purchase a semiautomatic assault rifle in Las Vegas, court documents state. He pleaded guilty to the weapons charge in April and was sentenced to time served.

The steepest forfeiture penalty went to Han, now 50, who was ordered to repay $500,000. Han told the courts he was granted asylum in the US in 2019 after suffering religious persecution in China for starting a church in his home, according to court records.

The stiffest prison sentence went to Zhang, now about 45, who’d claimed through his lawyer in court that he had no idea he was doing anything wrong. The judge handed Zhang 15 months in prison and ordered him to repay $150,000 – a formality as authorities had already seized that amount in the raid.

Fuller, the former detective with the Las Vegas police department, said it’s important to recognize the harm in the crime.

“You just can’t go take cash from anybody, because what ends up happening is, you end up taking it from Pablo Escobar,” said Fuller, who now works as a special agent for the IRS. “It’s basically the same thing that took place in the ’30s with Al Capone and all that, all the bankers and everybody. ‘Oh no, I, I don’t sell drugs. I’m not in organized crime. I just set up companies for people. I just move money.’”

Last fall, a little over two years after the last of the four men were sentenced, Wynn casino signed the non-prosecution agreement and admitted to its employees’ involvement in a range of schemes, including those catering to high-rolling Chinese gamblers. The casino, in a statement to CNN, said it was unaware of the details of the four individual criminal cases as they played out in court.

The agreement also highlighted earlier cases dating back to 2014 in which the Wynn casino “knowingly and intentionally conspired” with individuals – some with connections to Latin America – to set up illicit ways to get money to gamblers at the casino and to recruit foreign gamblers from places the US has identified as “major money laundering countries.”

In another scheme – referred to in the document as “human head gambling” – patrons who were prohibited by anti-money-laundering laws from gambling would stand behind a proxy gambler and give orders. One such patron had suspected connections to a transnational organized crime group.

Wynn casino’s involvement in the illicit activity wasn’t limited to casino hosts – it also included a company marketing executive and a senior executive of a company affiliate, the agreement says.

In its statement, Wynn said it has since made improvements outlined in its settlement, including adding high-level staff members to an office dedicated to enforcing anti-money-laundering laws, and establishing an independent compliance committee whose members are unaffiliated with the company.

An ‘explosion’ of Chinese money laundering

When Zhang and Han pleaded guilty in early 2020, they were the first in the US to be prosecuted for this form of underground banking, according to the DOJ.

Today, networks of Chinese underground bankers are the primary money launderers for not only the Mexican drug cartels, but organized crime groups around the world, including various Italian mafia groups, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on international organized crime with the Brookings Institution.

“Over the past eight years or so, you have this big explosion of Chinese money laundering in the states, in Mexico, in Europe,” she said.

Wynn isn’t the only casino that has been caught aiding criminals who evade banking laws.

In Australia, Crown Resorts casino was hit with a $300 million fine (in US dollars) in 2023 for running afoul of anti-money-laundering laws and continuing a business relationship with a junket operator despite the casino’s awareness of allegations the firm was connected to Chinese organized crime. “The company that committed these unacceptable, historic breaches is far removed from the company that exists today,” Crown Resorts said in a statement at the time.

In Canada, where this kind of crime has been rampant, a 2022 report by a government commission established to look into the issue revealed a common scheme in Vancouver that closely mirrors what investigators say was happening at Wynn: drug traffickers and Chinese loan sharks selling hockey bags filled with cash to Chinese gamblers who would wheel them into casinos to play a card game called baccarat.

Messenger, the gaming-compliance expert, said he wasn’t surprised that the historic Wynn settlement and similar cases haven’t attracted much public interest.

“The general public don’t typically have high expectations when it comes to the casino industry,” he said. “Everyone has Netflix. They’ve seen ‘Casino’; they’ve seen the other movies.”

The casino industry, however, has taken notice, and the culture of compliance with laws to prevent money laundering is improving, he said.

Even so, Messenger said, casinos – with their large volumes of cash and intensifying pressure to boost foot traffic and bring in high-rollers as online gambling gains in popularity – remain a rich venue for rinsing criminal proceeds.

“We see many, many cases of criminal funds or criminals attempting to deposit funds into the casino environment,” he said. “Not for the purposes of entertainment, but for the purposes of creating layers, creating explanations.”

Those criminal funds come from a business that has left a trail of devastation.

DEA official Brian Clark noted that the rise of Chinese money laundering coincided with a drug epidemic that in recent years has claimed over 100,000 lives annually in the US – the vast majority from opioids such as fentanyl.

“It’s all being fueled from this money laundering trade,” he said, “and it results in the death of Americans.”

Source: www.drugwatch.org

Opening statement by NDPA:

Why are we addressing ‘gambling’ in a drug prevention website? We address it because gambling is but one of other behaviours which some professionals address under what they term a ‘family of compulsive behaviours’ – others in this ‘family’ will include, for example, sexual behaviour which may have become compulsive rather than ‘the norm’ (whatever that means in that context!)

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

by Franny Lazarus – Ohio State News – Oct 21, 2025

From clincoln-dfaf.org@shared1.ccsend.com – 15 May 2025

 

For the first time in years, there’s encouraging news in the fight against the overdose crisis. According to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 80,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2024—30,000 fewer than the year before, marking a 27% decrease and the largest single-year decline ever recorded. This milestone reflects the impact of prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts across the country and reinforces the urgent need to continue investing in strategies that save lives.

 

Drug Free America Foundation proudly joins communities nationwide in recognizing National Prevention Week 2025, a public education platform led by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Held annually during the second week of May, National Prevention Week showcases the incredible work of individuals, organizations, and communities who are committed to preventing substance use and misuse and promoting positive mental health. Why Prevention Matters Now More Than Ever The need for strong prevention strategies has never been more urgent. According to the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an estimated 70.5 million people aged 12 or older (that’s nearly 1 in 4 Americans) used illicit drugs in the past year. Marijuana was the most commonly used, followed by hallucinogens and the misuse of prescription pain relievers. These findings underscore the critical importance of investing in prevention today to protect the health and well-being of future generations. Prevention in Action: Raising Awareness and Building Resilience This observance highlights the importance of raising awareness about substance use and mental health challenges through data-driven prevention strategies and evidence-based programs that have proven effective in creating healthier, safer communities. It also serves as a reminder of the power of collaboration and community experience in improving public health outcomes and building strong, lasting partnerships. National Prevention Week is about more than just awareness—it’s about sharing knowledge, disseminating high-quality resources, and empowering people with the tools they need to live healthy, substance-free lives.

 

Showcasing our newest initiative: The Trauma & SUD Action Force Initiative (TSAFI) The Trauma & SUD Action Force Initiative (TSAFI) is an international effort committed to bridging the gap in trauma-informed care within Substance Use Disorder (SUD) services—from prevention and treatment to recovery—using approaches grounded in neuroscience and scientific evidence. TSAFI unites experts, organizations, and decision-makers to promote the recognition and integration of trauma within all aspects of SUD care. By combining insights from neuroscience and psychology, TSAFI addresses the neurological and social dimensions of trauma, ensuring a comprehensive and informed response to its role in SUD. Discover more here or get involved by reaching out to tsafi@wfad.se or visiting https://tsafi.wfad.se/. Source: From clincoln-dfaf.org@shared1.ccsend.com – 15 May 2025

 

The ex-England football manager reflects on his personal journey, belief and resilience …

During Sir Gareth’s football career as a defender and midfielder, he played for Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough and was in the England squad between 1995 and 2004. He took over as manager in 2016 and led the team to the 2018 World Cup semi-final, 2022 World Cup quarter-final and Euro finals in 2020 and 2024.

He stepped down as Manager in July 2024,  two days after England lost to Spain in the Euros.

Sir Gareth has been credited with revitalising the England team and was knighted in the King’s New Year Honours in December.

He is the latest in a line of academics, business leaders and other notable figures to deliver the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, which has been held most years since 1972 in memory of the broadcaster.

Previous speakers have included King Charles III, when he was the Prince of Wales, tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Bill Gates, and Christine Lagarde, then the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

‘Too many young men are isolated’

Sir Gareth’s talk focused on the importance of belief and resilience for young men, and he cited three things needed to build these: identity, connection and culture.

He referred to a report, released earlier this month by the Centre for Social Justice, which said boys and young men were “in crisis”, with a “staggering” increase in those not in education, employment or training.

“Too many young men are isolated,” Sir Gareth said in his talk. “Too many feel uncomfortable opening up to friends or family. Many don’t have mentors – teachers, coaches, bosses – who understand how best to push them to grow. And so, when they struggle, young men inevitably try to handle whatever situation they find themselves in, alone.”

“Young men end up withdrawing, reluctant to talk or express their emotions,” he added. “They spend more time online searching for direction and are falling into unhealthy alternatives like gaming, gambling and pornography.”

Referencing his own experiences, he said the UK needed to do more to encourage young people – especially young men – to make the right choices in life and to not fear failure.

Rather than turning to teachers, sports coaches or youth group leaders, Sir Gareth said he feared many young men were searching for direction online. There, he said they were finding a new kind of role model, one that too often did not have their best interests at heart.

“These are callous, manipulative and toxic influencers, whose sole drive is for their own gain,” he said.

“They willingly trick young men into believing that success is measured by money or dominance, that strength means never showing emotion, and that the world, including women, is against them.”

He also said young men don’t get enough opportunities to fail and learn from their mistakes.

“In my opinion, if we make life too easy for young boys now, we will inevitably make life harder when they grow up to be young men,” he said. “Too many young men are at risk of fearing failure, precisely because they’ve had so few opportunities to experience and overcome it. They fail to try, rather than try and fail.”

The ex-footballer also reflected on what his career has taught him about belief and resilience.

“If I’ve learned anything from my life in football, it’s that success is much more than the final score,” he said. “True success is how you respond in the hardest moments.”

 

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqjpzg0qwno

 

Gamblers Anonymous meetings are filling up with people hooked on trading and betting. Apps make it as easy as ordering takeout.

Wall Street Journal      by Gunjan Banerji         Dec. 20, 2024

A new type of addict is showing up at Gamblers Anonymous meetings across the country: investors hooked on the market’s riskiest trades.

At Gamblers Anonymous in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, one man called options “the crack cocaine” of the stock market. Another said he faced hundreds of thousands of dollars in trading losses after borrowing from a loan shark to double down on stocks.  And one young man brought his mom and girlfriend to celebrate one year since his last bet.

They were among a group of about 60 people, almost all men, who sat in rows of metal folding chairs in a crowded church basement that evening. Some shared their struggle with addiction—not on sports apps or at Las Vegas casinos—but using brokerage apps like Robinhood.

Many of the men, and scores of others around the country, discovered trading and betting during the pandemic boom that began in 2020. Some were drawn in by big wins in meme stocks and other viral stock sensations, leading them into even higher-octane wagers that offer the chance to put up a small amount of cash for a potentially mammoth return—or more often, a crushing loss.

Others bought and sold cryptocurrencies on apps that make trading as easy as ordering takeout on Uber Eats or toiletries on Amazon. In an age where sports betting has become an accepted pastime—accessible by the flick of the thumb on an iPhone app—they found the same rush betting on dogecoin, Tesla or Nvidia as wagering on Patrick Mahomes to carry the Kansas City Chiefs to the Super Bowl.

Doctors and counselors say they are seeing more cases of compulsive gambling in financial markets, or an uncontrollable urge to bet. They expect the problem to worsen. The stock market has climbed 23% this year and bitcoin recently topped $100,000  for the first time, tempting many people to pile into speculative trades. Wall Street keeps introducing newer and riskier ways to play the market through stock options or complex exchange-traded products that use borrowed money and compound the risk for investors.

Some who are desperate to stop trading are turning to self-help groups like Gamblers Anonymous. A GA pamphlet advises members to stay away from bets on stocks, commodities and options as well as raffle tickets and office sports pools. Sometimes members hand over retirement accounts to their spouses.

Modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous, GA dates back to 1957 and now has hundreds of chapters in every U.S. state. Attendees at local GA meetings from Ponca City, Okla., to Allentown, Pa., subscribe to a 12-step program. It begins with accepting that they are powerless over gambling and can include a financial review in a so-called pressure relief group meeting. New attendees are peppered with calls from others and latch onto veteran members who commit to helping them stay on track.

‘Hi, my name is Mitch’

More than 30 people interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, many of whom regularly attend GA meetings, said they’ve struggled with compulsive gambling in financial markets. At times, the trading led to mood swings, sleepless nights and even depression. Their trades—and spiraling losses—became a shameful secret that they kept from their partners or other loved ones.

I asked Gamblers Anonymous for permission to attend some meetings. Attendees introduced me to the groups at the start of the meetings, and I observed the discussions. Members introduced themselves by their first names, according to GA practices.

“Hi, my name is Mitch, and I’m a compulsive gambler,” one said at a GA meeting this month near Ozone Park, N.Y. “Hi Mitch,” the group responded in unison.

The suburban dad of three, slightly balding with a big smile, stood in front of more than a dozen members in a church basement. He is haunted by the rising price of bitcoin—and the riches that could have been his, he said. Up around 40% since Election Day, bitcoin prices are on a wild ride. What would have happened, he wondered out loud, if he had just left his bitcoin in a digital wallet and handed it over to his wife?

Then he reminded himself and the group that he was never able to just buy and hold. “I needed more and more,” Mitch told the group. “I’m a sick, compulsive gambler. That’s why I keep making these meetings. I don’t trust myself.”

One attendee told him to stop eyeing cryptocurrency prices. Another reminded him of the toll trading had taken on his family and asked: “What’s more important, crypto or your kids?”

The entrepreneur, based in Long Island, N.Y., said cryptocurrencies caught his eye when he was in his late 40s and had gone more than 20 years since placing his last bet. He had sworn off gambling after a penchant for bold bets had led him to Gamblers Anonymous meetings in his early 20s. He invested $100 in bitcoin and watched it soar. He poured thousands of dollars into ether and smaller, more speculative coins. Something kept him from sharing with his GA group that he was trading.

When his portfolio rose above $1 million, he thought to himself, “That’s four Lambos.” He flew to Florida to look at potential vacation homes for his family near Walt Disney World.

Within months, he found himself in a familiar cycle. The rush of adrenaline he got when he bought and sold tokens pushed him to trade more frequently—to the point where he was trading hundreds of times a day—and taking bigger risks. He would wake at 4 a.m. to monitor his portfolio.

He parked his car in the lot of a Long Island shopping plaza near his home to trade in isolation. His neck grew tense from hunching over the screen.

When crypto prices started tumbling, snowballing losses left him sullen. “Sometimes I would get a passing thought as I went to bed: I hope I don’t wake up in the morning,” he said. His portfolio had fallen around $1 million from its peak.

Desperate for a way out, he typed “crypto gambling treatment center” into Google. He confessed to his GA mentors that he had been gambling.

A spiking problem

Pennsylvania’s gambling hotline has fielded more calls tied to gambling in stocks and crypto since 2021 than it did in the prior six years combined. At a New York-based treatment center, Safe Foundation, clinical director Jessica Steinmetz estimates about 10% of patients are seeking help for addictions tied to trading. Before 2020, there were no such patients.

Lyndon Aguiar, a clinical director at Williamsville Wellness, a gambling treatment center in Hanover, Va., said counselors sit down with traders and delete dozens of stock, sports and financial news apps from their phones when they walk in the doors for its inpatient treatment program. The center has seen a 25% increase in gambling tied to markets since 2020, compared with the prior four years. Patients might install Gamban, an app that locks individuals out of gambling on their phones. The app started blocking Robinhood and Webull in July 2021.

A Robinhood spokesperson said it includes “robust safeguards to help customers make informed decisions” and that individuals deserve the freedom to become stewards of their own finances. A spokesperson for Webull said the platform offers educational tools to foster responsible investment decisions.

New patients often suffer from withdrawal symptoms including severe anxiety and depression when they first stop trading, he said. Some start fidgeting or repeatedly tapping their fingers against a table, itching to place a trade.

Abdullah Mahmood, administrative coordinator of a gambling program at the Maryhaven addiction treatment center in Columbus, Ohio, said he has seen several clients enter the treatment center’s doors this year for trading addictions. Options are particularly problematic, he said.

Activity in options is on track to smash another record this year.  Trading in contracts expiring the same day, which are the riskiest, has soared to make up more than half of all trades in the market for S&P 500 index options this year, according to figures from SpotGamma. These trades are more electric than traditional stocks, with the potential to rocket higher or plunge to zero within minutes.

Similar to wagering on how many points Mavericks point guard Luka Dončić will score in the first quarter of an NBA game, traders are increasingly using options to speculate how stocks will fare during the trading session, rather than at the closing bell.

This year, “a client came down to my office, suicidal,” Mahmood said. “He had lost $14,000 in just five minutes in options trading on the app Robinhood.”

Doug Royer, 61, has been attending Mahmood’s  group counseling sessions every Monday.

He initially entered the center’s doors for help with his drinking. Then, he saw signs for a gambling program while walking the halls of Maryhaven’s treatment center. Immediately, the six figures he lost trading came to mind.

After selling his house in 2022, he had poured thousands of dollars into investments like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Lockheed Martin and Texas Pacific Land before amping up the risk with options trading. He traded in and out of companies such as Spirit Airlines and Estée Lauder, while borrowing on margin in an attempt to magnify his bets, brokerage statements show.

Eventually, he said he had almost no money left to trade with after losses in options and lotteries. He said he has been working part-time as a massage therapist near Columbus, Ohio.  “It’s very easy to make a lot of money,” Royer said. “It’s also easy to lose everything really fast.”

Addiction counselors say gambling in financial markets often goes undetected and can be tough to track because individuals confuse their actions with investing. Unlike sports betting apps such as FanDuel and DraftKings, most brokerage apps don’t post warnings about gambling or offer hotlines to seek help. The proliferation of financial instruments, along with flashy brokerage apps that make them easy to trade, has also helped some gamblers convince themselves that they weren’t actually placing bets.

The National Council on Problem Gambling started including questions about investing in its annual survey in 2021, after its gambling hotline received an influx of calls during the meme-stock mania. The council’s executive director, Keith Whyte, said NCPG reached out to apps like Robinhood to suggest they adopt consumer protections ingrained in gambling apps. “In some cases, the consumer protections in the gambling industry exceed that in the financial markets,” Whyte said.

Like the anticipation of sex or delicious food, a financial gamble like an options trade can flood your brain with feel-good chemicals, said Brian Knutson, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Stanford University. The bigger the financial payout or tastier the dish, the stronger the rush. That anticipation can keep a trader going back to place another bet, forming a reinforcing habit, added Knutson, who has studied risk-taking in financial markets for more than two decades.

“It’s not just the release, per se, of the dopamine, but the speed of the release that’s reinforcing,” Knutson said.

Chris Cachia, a 38-year-old power-plant technician in Ontario, Canada, got swept up with trading during the meme-stock mania in 2021. After turning around 7,000 Canadian dollars into roughly 50,000 trading stocks like GameStop and BlackBerry, he found short-dated stock options when he went hunting for fatter profits. He scored some early wins. Before long, the thousands he made evaporated and his account sank into a deep hole. Yet he said he couldn’t walk away—he was consumed by a fear of missing out on the riches that others boasted about online.

One week while his wife was traveling, he holed up in his home office for days trading. He grew desperate for a win and bet more money than he had in his brokerage account. It didn’t work out.

The subsequent loss left him so depressed that he skipped his brother’s bachelor party. “It was causing erratic changes in my behavior as I got deeper and deeper in,” Cachia said. “I was basically a full-out gambling addict.” He said he tried to quit countless times since his trading ramped up during the pandemic, deleting brokerage and social-media apps from his phone, only to quickly download them again. He wasn’t able to pull away until his wife threatened to leave him. “She gave me an ultimatum: You need to stop this, or I’m done,” Cachia said.

__

Source: More Men Are Addicted to the ‘Crack Cocaine’ of the Stock Market – WSJ

www.drugwatch.org
drug-watch-international@googlegroups.com