She Zhijiang, a Chinese national accused of building an illegal gambling empire in Southeast Asia, is being extradited to China.
The scam city boss had been detained in Thailand since 2022 after the Thai police arrested him acting on a Chinese request to Interpol.
China accused Zhijiang of running illegal online gambling rings, and after a Thai court decision this week, he arrived at a Bangkok airport on Wednesday, November 12, joined by two security officials.
His extradition came ahead of a landmark visit by Thailand's king to Beijing, the first state visit to China by a reigning Thai monarch and a sign of deepening ties.
She Zhijiang is one of the biggest names linked to the vast cyberscam hubs in Southeast Asia, which have trapped thousands of Chinese nationals and sparked a crackdown from Beijing.
One of his most notorious projects is Myanmar's Shwe Kokko city, near the Thai border, which is promoted as a resort city for Chinese tourists; however, its upscale buildings are allegedly home to fraud, money laundering and human trafficking.
She Zhijiang and his company Yatai are sanctioned by the UK and the US for his links to rights abuses in the scam farms in their development.
Who is She Zhijiang?
Born in a poor village in Hunan province in China in 1982, She Zhijiang left school at 14 and learnt computer coding.
He reportedly moved to the Philippines in his early 20s and got into online gambling, which is illegal in China. In 2014 a Chinese court convicted him of running an illegal lottery.
But over the years he expanded his gambling business to Cambodia and other countries in the region.
The UN estimates that hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in scam centres concentrated in Southeast Asia. They are often lured there by fake job offers and held against their will, forced to defraud others online or face brutal punishment.
With many of them being Chinese nations, Beijing has taken a great interest in the case and has ramped up crackdowns on similar scam operations.
In recent months, China has sentenced multiple members of Chinese "mafia" families to death.
