Who Wanted Lin Bing-wen Dead?
Who Wanted Lin Bing-wen Dead?
Gaming Tycoon’s assassination involves Taiwan’s intertwined politics and underworld
By: Jens Kastner
The assassination in Cambodia of Lin Bing-wen, a fugitive billionaire Taiwanese gambling tycoon, is raising speculation in Taipei that Lin was protected and then silenced by powerful political forces. He used social media to deny that he was fleeing justice in Taipei and taunted political figures in Taiwan, suggesting he would return to expose sensitive information involving public officials.
Lin, variously reported as 54 or 55 years old and nicknamed “The Eel,” was found dead with 29 bullet wounds while walking his dog in the gaming mecca of Sihanoukville on March 23, with three to four assailants managing to flee. A manhunt is underway, although Cambodian authorities have released few details and no official motive has been confirmed. Five of the shots were to his head, prompting Hong Kong-based security consultant Steve Vickers, a specialist on organized crime, to quip: “Well, we can probably rule out suicide.”
Top of the Wanted List
A heavily tattooed figure with a clean-shaven head, Lin, an alleged Heavenly Way triad member, had been at the top of Taiwan’s wanted list for his alleged role in one of the island’s largest underground banking and gambling cases, commonly referred to as the “88 Club” scandal, which extended well beyond financial crime. More than two dozen law enforcement officials were disciplined after being linked to the club, which functioned as a high-end private venue catering to influential figures across business, politics and law enforcement.
Together with former Taiwanese gambling executive Kuo Che-min, Lin faced trial at the New Taipei District Court in 2024 for charges related to his alleged involvement in gambling operations and an international money laundering scheme. But he failed to turn up several times and eventually jumped bail, slipping out of Taiwan to Cambodia, where he reportedly became involved in hotel and casino operations in the city, working with Chinese partners.
Lin was also involved in the 2007 “Black Rice Incident,” a match-fixing scandal that rocked Taiwan’s professional baseball league, and he has had a long track record in the Macao gambling industry but left as regulatory pressure from the Chinese government intensified amid widespread reports of Chinese bureaucrats gambling millions. According to the Japanese online publication Nikkei Asia, Lin represented the Venus junket in public events across Asia, including in its dealings with the Suncity junket, which until its closure in 2022 was the undisputed king of VIP casino gaming promotion throughout Macau. Lin was also the owner of PGTalk, an encrypted messaging and payment services app believed to be used by gangsters and money launderers.
Taiwan gangsters’ international scams
Taiwanese gangsters are heavily involved in Southeast Asia’s gambling and scam industry, operating primarily through transnational criminal networks, illegal online betting platforms and scam compounds in countries like Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines. These criminal syndicates, including the Bamboo Union, Four Seas Gang and Heavenly Way, often disguise their operations as legitimate IT or gaming businesses to facilitate money laundering, human trafficking and online fraud.
Media commentators believe the motives for Lin Bing-wen’s murder point to two main directions: first, he possessed inside information about the “88 Club” money laundering case, potentially involving Taiwanese political, business and underworld forces, thus requiring that he be silenced. Second, his high-profile entry into Cambodia’s complex gambling market led to a conflict of interest with local gangs. The gambling industry in Cambodia, especially in Sihanoukville, is heavily intertwined with transnational organized crime, serving as a major hub for cyber-scam operations, human trafficking, money laundering and forced labor.
In Taipei, Lin was often photographed fraternizing with politicians belonging to the center-left nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), currently Taiwan’s ruling party headed by President Lai Ching-te, which controls the central government. Opposition-leaning commentators are rankled by the fact that Lin was released on a meager bail of NT$3 million ($93,000) in the 88 Club scandal and got away with not wearing an electronic ankle bracelet. For comparison, former opposition leader Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) had to post a bail of NT$70 million in corruption and embezzlement cases that on March 26 earned him 17 years in prison.
Was he helped to flee
“The NT$3 million bail was ridiculously low for someone involved in a money laundering case exceeding NT$20 billion, practically allowing him to escape,” said Hsieh Han-ping, a commentator close to the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), in a talk show on Taiwanese cable TV network CTITV on March 24. “Lin Bing-wen’s death might have been a way to close the case, covering up a larger underworld figure or a powerful financial backer within the pro-independence camp, because the dead can’t speak.”
Similarly, Ho Ching-jung, a professor at Tamkang University in Taipei, in the same talk show compared Lin’s case to that of Chen Chi-yu, the former chairman of Taiyen Biotech Co. Chen was a DPP legislator until he was appointed chairman of the newly privatized company. Prosecutors alleged that Chen and other executives released fraudulent revenue reports and falsified documents in collusion with other firms to secure tenders for solar power farm projects and related construction work in southern Taiwan, a DPP stronghold. Ho also invoked the case of Hsu Han, the former head of Taiwan’s state-owned refiner CPC Corp’s refinery division in the DPP stronghold Kaohsiung. Prosecutors accused Hsu of receiving NT$17 million in kickbacks. He was captured in Taitung on March 24.
“The DPP’s political and business circles were giving these crimin