A heavy media presence landed in Bavet this afternoon as 79 local and international journalists from 39 news outlets swept through the former "Golden Silver River Casino" site in Svay Rieng province. Cameras in hand, reporters moved through the property to get a firsthand look at what remains of the once-infamous compound.
The backstory of the property is a tangled one. Owned by a Chinese landlord named Hong Xingju, the building was leased out to a group of Vietnamese nationals. Rather than running a legitimate business, the tenants turned the site into a full-scale online scam operation. That all came crashing down on April 7, when Cambodian police raided the premises and shut the entire operation down.
In this border town, nights used to be filled with the roar of motorbikes, street stall smoke, and crowds of people hustling around these notorious compounds—troubles long reported by local media. Today, with the building sealed off, the buzz is completely gone. Looking in from the street, there is no noise left, just peeling walls and an empty shell standing quiet in the exhaust of passing traffic.
