NAGAWORLD
INTRO: Welcome to Who Killed Haing Ngor?
I’m still in Singapore, where I’ve been looking into organized crime syndicates.
Singapore, of course, is a global financial hub. The government is notoriously strict. It cracks down on criminal activities, large and small – all to maintain its role as an international financial powerhouse.
It’s also notoriously difficult to get Singaporeans to speak candidly about Singapore’s flaws. The risk is just too high, in a country with an existential need to maintain its squeaky-clean reputation.
One topic Singaporean authorities would rather avoid talking about? Triads. And gangs. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s, Singapore was a hotbed of organized crime.
Singaporeans are human. They’re not magically immune to the temptations of crime, no matter what image the government wants to project. Some are involved in narcotrafficking, money-laundering, unlicensed crypto -- the full range of illegal activities, the same as any other nationality.
But– there’s a key difference: most are smart enough to commit their crimes OUTSIDE of Singapore –- in Asia’s more lawless nations. Like Cambodia.
In this episode, I go into a Singaporean criminal syndicate that operated in Cambodia in Haing Ngor’s time-frame. As gangsters tell me, it runs the NagaWorld casino.
My name is Patricia Nunan, and this is Who Killed Haing Ngor.
TEXT: When the NagaWorld casino first opened up in Phnom Penh, in May 1995, it was aboard a boat. A small ship, really. I don’t remember if my friends and I ever referred to it “NagaWorld.” To us, it was the floating casino. I never actually went aboard.
MPN: I'm in Singapore and I was catching up with an old friend, and to my delight and surprise, it turns out he actually visited the floating casino in Phnom Penh back in the ‘90s. So this is my friend Craig Martin, and I'll just throw this at you. What made you go?
CRAIG MARTIN: I was on a mission. I worked briefly at the British Embassy in Phnom Penh in Cambodia, and one of the ambassadors had a secret hobby which was collecting casino chips. Now, it's not fitting for a British ambassador to rock up in a dodgy casino in Phnom Penh. So he asked me, and asked would I go on his behalf. And of course, I was delighted. So I went to the casino. And as well as enjoying casino, I picked up some casino chips and handed them to the British ambassador, which he added to his collection with some delight, I might add.
MPN: It never crossed my mind before, but casino chips are all unique then.
CRAIG MARTIN: Well, I didn't realize this either, but apparently so. I think he collected other things, coins and what have you. But casino chips was his particular penchant.
MPN: And you said you went at the same time - you went out with some of the lads partying at the casino?
CRAIG MARTIN: Well, I wouldn't say partying as much as serious business of trying to outwit the Russian croupiers and the Russian card dealers at the blackjack tables. But, yeah, with some friends, we'd go to the casino for an evening and try and win.
MPN: So what's it look like and how would it compare to a Western casino?
CRAIG MARTIN: It's very much like an Asian casino. I haven't been in any Western casinos for a long, long time. Once you're in, it's very glitzy, obviously, no clocks and just the imagery to keep you there at the tables, attentive waiters and waitresses. A lot more people than you'd imagine for what then was a very poor time in Cambodia. So there's a lot of activity at the casino, presumably not all of it legitimate, in the sense of money flows and people gambling with a huge amount of money at some tables, groups of old ladies almost, with massive piles of chips, which would be thousands and thousands of dollars. So probably more going on than just people collecting chips for the British ambassador.
NagaWorld is no longer on a boat. In 2003, it moved to a huge complex of buildings, near the Independence Monument in Phnom Penh, and extending almost as far as the river. I’ve still never been inside.
NagaWorld was the first casino to open since the late 1960s, before Cambodia was swept up in war and the catastrophic Khmer Rouge period. It was 1995 – the last year of Haing Ngor’s life.
The United Nations had left a year and a half earlier. Cambodia, in its democratic infancy, was back on its own.
To me, NagaWorld represents a turning point: it’s when Cambodia really began to embrace organized crime.
Controversy erupted immediately. Only foreign passport holders were allowed into NagaWorld. Some lawmakers charged that a casino would do more economic damage to than good. Plus, senior officials were bribed to support NagaWorld’s opening, they said. But no charges were ever proven.
The NagaWorld founder was Dr. Ken Lip Cheong - an ethnic-Chinese businessman from Malaysia. He was the president of Ariston Limited, which won exclusive rights to develop casinos in Cambodia for 40 years - until 2035. It was a $1.3 billion dollar deal, in 1995, that also included ambitious plans for Ariston to develop of the coastal city of Sihanoukville. But those plans were later abandoned by both sides.
The world of casinos in Cambodia is a universe unto itself. I only have time to give you a glimpse of it here. I’ll be focusing on the context that relates to my Haing Ngor investigation.
First - a detail that caught my eye. It was a comment by Prince Ranariddh at the casino’s opening, in a story by United Press International. He was Cambodia's so-called “First” Prime Minister, in that doomed power-sharing arrangement with Second Prime Minister Hun Sen.
“The government has banned the export of timber,” Prince Ranariddh said, “so we have to find another source of income.” What struck me was how matter-of-fact it was.
Illegal logging made corrupt officials rich and helped support the Khmer Rouge. That prompted the international community to push for restrictions. So the government “had” to open a casino. That’s what Prince Ranariddh seemed to be saying.
What his comment said to me? As soon as one illicit network was even slightly tamed, another popped up in its place. That’s how Cambodia seems to work.
[MINI-BREAK]
As soon as NagaWorld opened, a wave of abductions and casino-related violence hit Phnom Penh, archived news stories reveal. There was talk about banning casinos. It didn’t last. Nor did the “exclusivity” promised to Ariston. By 1998 - three years after that “exclusive” 40 year deal - three casinos had opened. One was owned by a known organized crime figure. Cambodia would go on to have 193 casinos, at their height, in 2019, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
[MINI-BREAK]
Let’s go back to Singapore. That’s where I met with two retired Singaporean gangsters. They were from different triads. Only one let me record them. But both said the same thing:
NagaWorld was, and still is – run by a Singaporean triad.
[BREAK]
It began in the 1960’s. A “secret society” is the same as a triad.
DESOUZA: This guy, his name is Bernard Heng Keng Seng, I can by heart know it. He was on the Seetong secret society, and he became an armed robber.
That’s the voice of Lionel deSouza. He was a detective with Secret Societies Branch of the Singapore Police Force.This audio is from the National Archives of Singapore, available online. DeSouza died in 2017.
Aaron, the Singaporean journalist I hired, and I both reached out to the Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau’s for a fresh interview on the subject of triads and criminal syndicates. We were turned down.
Bernard Heng Keng Seng is sometimes listed as Bernard Lim.
DeSouza arrested Bernard Heng, as I’m going to call him, for an attempted armed robbery in 1972. Heng was shot during the confrontation, ending up in the hospital. DeSouza went to visit him.
DESOUZA: The first question Bernard asked me, Did you find a Buddha? I said, Yes. Then he told me the story about a Buddha. He got his Buddha from some Cambodian monks. That time they had a temple at Thomson Road. He had not much money. He said, Okay, I pay you deposit I'll come and pay you the rest. He never went to pay. He told me he never paid. That's why he got caught.
Benard Heng tried to go straight for a few years. He dabbled in Christianity, for a time. But the lure of triad life was too strong.
DE SOUZA: The next thing I heard from his friends all there - Seetong there. He's now in Holland. He fled to Amsterdam. Okay, Amsterdam is a damn corrupt place. All the wanted buggers go there.
There are a couple of reasons why I share that anecdote. One, if you google Singapore and triads, there’s a rich history there, far more than I can include here. And two – it seems that no one, these days - is willing or able to talk about it.
In fact, I have spent months trying to find anyone in academic, policy, analyst, press and government circles - in a couple of different countries - to talk to me about the Seetong and their affiliates. I’ve had no luck. So I’m going to give you the “Cliff Notes” version.
And, of course, it’s all going to circle back to Cambodia.
[BREAK]
There’s an image that may be useful to keep in mind. It’s matryoshka – those Russian nesting dolls. A tiny doll fits inside a slightly bigger one, which fits inside another slightly bigger one, and so on.
The Seetong is a largely Singaporean triad, with some Malaysians in the mix. Its hey-day was the 1960’s and early 1970’s. They ran protection rackets, engaged in illegal gambling – especially on horses, and ran the drug trade.
They’re the smallest doll. In 1973, the Singaporean government implemented the death penalty for drug-trafficking. Not surprisingly, Seetong members left Singapore and went to Amsterdam, the capital of both the Netherlands, and the global heroin trade.
Bernard Heng was the second-in-command.
The Seetong boss was Roland Tan. He was known as “the Hainanese kid.” He had fled to Amsterdam in 1969, after he murdered someone from a rival gang.
Once in Amsterdam, the Seetong took on a new name. They were now the Ah Kong, made up of a couple of different gangs and triads. Those words, “Ah Kong” happen to mean “grandfather.” But in triad context, it means “the company.” The Ah Kong prided themselves on business-like efficiency.
You can think of the Ah Kong as a slightly bigger Russian doll: the Seetong fits inside of it, along with another gang or two.
It turns out, Amsterdam of the 1970’s was awash in Chinese triads - or at least the parts that dealt with the drug trade. Soon, the Ah Kong were part of a bloody battle for control of the heroin trade.
In 1978, Singaporean and Dutch authorities joined forces and cracked down. About fifty Ah Kong members were arrested.
Roland Tan, however, got away. He fled to Denmark. He died there in 2020, having spent 50 years on the run.
Bernard Heng also avoided those arrests. By this point, he and Roland Tan had become rivals, essentially running two branches of the Ah Kong. He spent most of his time in Taiwan and Bangkok, earning the nickname Siam Kia – or “The Siamese Kid.” He ran drugs to Europe out of the Golden Triangle.
I get this information from a series of 1994 articles in The New Paper, a Singaporean newspaper; and a press release by Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau. I’ll link to those on the “Who Killed Haing Ngor” webpage.
It’s not clear exactly when - probably the mid 1990’s. But the Ah Kong’s Bernard Heng moved to Cambodia.
[BREAK]
[FOOD COURT NOISE]
Aaron I headed out to one of Singapore’s famous “hawker centers.” These are open-aired food courts, where vendors sell surprisingly good street food. They’re a staple of most neighborhoods.
Here, we met John, a retired member of the Seetong triad. He had worked internationally, too. So – thinking of those Russian dolls - he was also a member of the Ah Kong.
I was excited to meet John. I had already interviewed another figure, from a different triad, who I’m going to call Charlie. He left behind the triad life and has a conventional job now. But he wouldn't let me record him. I was told John had no problem with it, as long as I didn’t use his real name.
The transcript to this episode will be on the “Who Killed Haing Ngor” webpage.
MPN: So this. This is surprising. Because Singapore has an international reputation of being very strict, withbvery strong law and order. I don't think people believe that there are Singaporean gangs.
JOHN: We have. We have many gang[s] in Singapore even till today. Till today still exist. Still have.
MPN: There's still many gangs now ?
JOHN - Still have. [inaudible,] Malay group, like is Indian. All this now we still have. But not active. Those days you can, you can open a casino, a mahjong table, a club, people gamble , y ou collect protection money. Every shop, you can collect protection money. Night club - also protection money. Now cannot. Now government very strict. So most of the street gang, the gang in Singapore - not active.
I had been advised not to dive into the topic of Cambodia or Haing Ngor right away. So I asked John about his and the Seetong’s past. Let me just add that John’s identity was verified to me by another reliable source.
The Seetong was not like traditional triads. Those are secret societies, governed by a strict codes, traditions and rituals. The Seetong is modern - created in 1960’s Singapore. It was made up by criminals, and fugitives – some of them, sailors, who once had fled to sea; most of Hainanese descent. They then banded together for protection - and to make money.
Charlie had told me something interesting. Because the Ah Kong were so new, they had dispensed with some old traditions, like keeping their operations relatively discreet. In some ways, they were more like a Mexican cartel. They enjoyed their reputation for violence -- and were far quicker use it.
MPN: So how you said you're Christian. So is. Is Ah Kong Christian or is it like Hakka? Hokkien, is it?
JOHN: No, Ah Kong is. They don't believe all this crap - religion. They don't. Not interested. They only talk about money. Money is power.
John had first joined in the 1960’s. To his parents’ dismay, he was a hippie and enthralled with counter-culture. So they threw him out. He joined the Seeton to survive – and his criminal life took off from there.
In Singapore, he ran drugs and worked as an illegal bookie. When the police started to close in, he fled, sneaking away by boat to Indonesia, where he picked up a fake passport. Then he joined the Ah Kong in Amsterdam.
There, he spent about a decade doing everything from money-laundering to diamond smuggling to forging passports to drug-trafficking. He was not a hit-man, but he was a violent guy. Once, on a trip to Bangkok, he barely escaped an assassination attempt.
Other Asia forays saw him working in Macau.
JOHN: No, before I was arrested. So I, I wash money laundering money for this Silver City boss. Macau. Silver City Casino.
John used to sneak back into Singapore, more or less annually to visit, family. In 1996, he was caught. He spent 10 years in prison. That’s when he became Christian.
JOHN: Volunteer[s]- they come to come to share the word of God to you. Hopefully you can change your life to accept Christ. Then in the prison they also have a pledge. [They] ask you to write - no more gang. You, you declare you are no more in this gang group, right?
MPN: And you signed the pledge?
JOHN: For me – Ah Kong syndicate, my big boss, I told him, I draw a line there.
[BREAK]
John never worked in Cambodia despite being asked. Before prison, he was affiliated with Roland Tan, whom he didn’t want to betray. After prison, he knew that if he went, Bernard Heng would try to drag him back into the world of the Ah Kong.
John told me he’s been on the straight and narrow since his release from prison 20 years ago.
Still at one point, he started scrolling through photos on his phone, looking for shots from a recent trip to Malaysia. Much to my surprise, he showed us a selfie with a Malaysian business contact, and Broken Tooth – a notorious gangster from Macau, with the 14k.
JOHN: I want to show you some photo. Ah, I'm here. This is the Broken Tooth, lah.
MPN: He looks happy to be out of prison.
Broken Tooth was the 14k boss in Macau during the horrific triad wars of the 1990’s. His real name is Wan Kuok Koi. He ran dodgy casinos and eventually spent 14 years in prison. He was released in 2012.
That’s like me pulling out a phone and showing you a selfie with John Gotti or Whitey Bolger. That’s the scale we’re talking about, if not larger. Broken Tooth is a major criminal figure. Even today, he’s linked to casino junkets, underground banking, unlicensed crypto and scam centers by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
John said that meeting was “networking” about a possible business venture of Broken Tooth’s in Myanmar. He didn’t share details, but insisted his part was entirely legal. But frankly, the legality of any venture involving both Broken Tooth and Myanmar is very much up for debate.
[BREAK]
By this point, John seemed pretty relaxed. So I started to direct the conversation over to Haing Ngor.
MPN: Right. So I'm wondering just does -- is Ah Kong in Cambodia?
JOHN: Our brother have our group of brother. All right. After this they settle down, they go to Cambodia - Nagaworld.
MPN: Who has Nagaworld?
JOHN: NagaWorld - we have our brother there. There's one guy called Siam Kia. Bernard, Bernard. He passed away already. He owned the hotel, casino.
AARON: When did he pass away?
JOHN: Last two years
MPN: Siam Kia owned NagaWorld?
JOHN: [A] casino there.
MPN: From, from – from when it began?
JOHN: 1990 Plus.
So that’s Bernard Heng, also known as Siam Kia, the “Siamese Kid,” and the leader of one branch of the Ah Kong. He’s the one who was shot by Lionel de Souza in Singapore, because he said, he didn’t pay in full for the Buddha amulet he bought from Cambodian monks, back in the 1970’s.
NagaWorld had opened, aboard the ship, in May 1995. Now John was telling me two things: NagaWorld was dirty from the very beginning. And the Ah Kong’s Benard Heng worked in partnership with Prime Minister Hun Sen.
JOHN: He set up a casino. Hun Sen – partner
MPN: For Naga World
JOHN: He wash money, laundry money.
MPN: Okay. And so. But you don't. Do you know the name Haing Ngor? No. Okay, but that's interesting. So could you go to Naga World? So it's a casino for gambling.
JOHN: To wash money. Laundering money.
MPN: Okay. Can you borrow money from Naga World?
JOHN: They, they can, yeah. They have credit for those business people. All this.
MPN: You can borrow money from Naga World. And then. And then if you cannot pay, what happens then?
JOHN: They kidnap you, lah.
That Prime Minister Hun Sen is corrupt won’t be a big surprise to the Cambodia heads, but this is potentially a huge piece in the Haing Ngor puzzle.
Before we go ahead, a quick timeout here. I reached out to NagaCorp, the parent company to Nagaworld, for an interview with a media officer about the casino’s alleged links to organized crime. I have not yet heard back.
Several press reports dating back to the early 2000’s describe NagaCorp founder, Chen Lip Keong as an “economic adviser” to Hun Sen. But I need to be perfectly clear: I have never seen even one allegation that Chen Lip Keong was ever linked to an organized criminal group or a triad. And that’s across human rights records, academia, press, and government reports. He died in 2023, celebrated as one of Malaysia’s most successful businessmen.
Frank and I also tried to get an interview with Prime Minister Hun Sen. We have still never heard back.
As you can tell, chatting with John could be a little meandering. But I wanted to follow up on what he said about Hun Sen. What he’s about to say is corroborated by news stories – there was that wave abductions in Phnom Penh, reported after NagaWorld opened. The muscle behind those were corrupt elements of the Cambodian military.
MPN: If you borrow money and you and you can't pay.
JOHN: Then they were hold you hostage - hostage. [To] get your family member to come and pay up Interesting.
MPN: And Hun Sen was involved.
JOHN: Hun Sen[’s] relative[s], brother, and all his cousins they are behind the scenes. Hun Sen cannot show face but they're behind [the scenes.] So people want to work with you because you have the power - army power.
MPN: Interesting.
JOHN: [The] army controlled all the all the casino[s], behind [the scenes]. You must give them a share. So [if] anything happened or what[ever] - they were they can close one eye.
MPN: Is it the army who does the kidnapping?
JOHN: Sometimes.
[BREAK]
Let’s frame some of this with what was going on with Haing Ngor’s chaotic financial life.
Between 1992 and 1996, he had invested, gave away or lost as much as $2 million in today’s money.
There was that long-term drain on his finances caused by the Canada House orphanage.
There were the humanitarian projects he paid for - some in partnership with Prime Minister Hun Sen.
There was that windfall of cash when Ngor played a Buddhist monk, in an IBM commercial.
Larry told us that Ngor went to the US, every 2-3 months, to buy trucks – which he shipped to Cambodia - for yet another business he was trying to launch.
And there was that turbulence surrounding his sawmill. We don’t know how much he spent on it. But the previous owner had not paid the staff, and they made off with some of the equipment. So Ngor paid back wages and bought new equipment. My guess is that’s where a chunk of that IBM money went.
Then sawmill sat idle for some time, because Chan Sarun had refused to give Ngor a forestry concession. Eventually, he signed a deal to rent the sawmill to Japanese investors. It had not yet turned a profit, when Ngor was killed.
By then, Ngor was carrying debt of $203 thousand in today’s money. Part of that was a loan of about $50 thousand, I’ve been told, he took out in his girlfriend’s name.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of this until this episode. But if Ngor was borrowing money in his girlfriend’s name, then had he already depleted his own line of credit somewhere? It’s possible there’s another significant debt that I’m not aware of.
People have consistently told me that Ngor never gambled. But he was seen heading into the NagaWorld casino.
Just about all of this was going down as Cambodia was experiencing an explosion in banks – between 1994 and 1995.. So many were just money-laundering ventures, that the National Bank pulled the license of anyone who could not prove they held enough assets.
If Ngor was short on cash, it’s not like he could go to a conventional bank, and take out a loan.
But NagaWorld, as John just told us, was an underground bank.
[BREAK]
No one is more painfully aware than I am that, with my investigation, I haven’t proven anything. Despite three years on this project, I am short on evidence. But I have gathered enough information to paint three plausible scenarios for what may have gotten Haing Ngor killed.
[BREAK]
Here’s the first: Let’s say, Haing Ngor borrowed money at NagaWorld he could not pay it back.
Now, if you were in the Ah Kong – would you kidnap Haing Ngor? Would you try to extort Sofia Ngor?
Ngor was friends Prime Minister Hun Sen, NagaWorld’s alleged money-laundering patron.
His brother is another power-player, Chan Sarun. Are those people you’re really going to mess with? Would you risk NagaWorld itself, as a money-laundering venture?
Or, is it far more likely that Haing Ngor was entirely safe… as long as he was in Cambodia?
[BREAK]
There’s one more Russian doll we need to talk about – the biggest one. It’s a criminal alliance known as the Sam Gor. It’s almost like a United Nations of triads and organized crime groups. It was founded by a Chinese-Canadian in the 1990’s, and ts members include the Ah Kong, the Bamboo Union, 14k, Big Circle Boys, Sun Yee On and Wo Shing Wo.
The best reporting I’ve seen on the Sam Gor is a 2019 investigation by Reuters, which refers to its founder Tse Chi Lop as Asia’s “El Chapo.” The Reuters story is a little vague on when the Sam Gor alliance took shape, but John was asked to work with them before his arrest, in 1996.
I pushed John on the question of whether the Ah Kong would ever pursue a debt overseas.
They did at times. Or they could ask a favor of another group in the Sam Gor.
JOHN:Ok - there's one guy, he from Cambodia. So some businessmen look for people [who] owe money, then they migrate. Or they go off to Europe. So they will contact us. XXX, can you get someone to look check for me this guy, he owe[s] people money, now he's on the run. Can you help us to find him? So we will go and find – look[ing] around all the Chinatown, all these Chinese people. This guy, where is he? Then once we get him, we will arrest him, hold him hostage, t hen get his family to settle the money.
MPN: But would you kill someone in a different country?
JOHN: For me, I don't kill our worker, our hitman.
MPN: But would Ah Kong send someone to kill?
JOHN: Yes. Yes.
MPN: In another country.
JOHN: Yeah.
MPN: If they owe money.
JOHN: Yeah. If they betray — owe money or betray.
Betrayal. That’s an interesting thought. So is disrespect. Let’s keep in mind a few things we’ve learned about Ngor. He had strong opinions and a moral compass, and he was triggered by things like corruption. He also had a real abrasive streak.
This is speculation, but I’ve wondered for some time if he owed someone money and also – somehow managed to piss that person off. So that’s a hypothetical I put to John.
JOHN: No. You see, in our line, where [is] money concern - any breach of trust, you have to face this. Either they get rid of you, or they ask you to give you time to pay back.
MPN: But if I disrespect you, and say, I'm not going to pay you back.
JOHN: Then we have to get rid of you.
Haing Ngor had a temper, and he had debt. He was seen going into NagaWorld. Through the Sam Gor, or even on their own, the Ah Kong had international reach, as far as Los Angeles.
To me, it’s possible they killed Haing Ngor.
[BREAK]
Let me throw at you a second, plausible scenario.
Haing Ngor’s secretary said he tried to sell his banking license, to a man we had thought was Larry. I now longer think it was Larry, so I’m going to change that person’s name to Mr. X.
When the deal fell through, Mr. X was angry, and he threatened Ngor, saying, “I know professional killers.”
The secretary said that Mr. X was a broker of some sort, who represented a “Singapore Group.”
What if the “Singapore Group” was the Ah Kong – and they wanted a bank? Or what if Mr. X was a criminal figure who wanted a bank so he could link up with the Ah Kong ?
Money-laundering essentially is about hiding the criminal origins of money. Here’s a basic version. A criminal brings dirty money into casino, usually cash, and trades it in for chips. He gambles for bit, limiting his losses, and then cashes out. Now that dirty money is clean, and usually takes the form of a check or a wire transfer.
Forgive me for getting into the weeds here again. But smart people I’ve talked to about the Ngor case have said to me, if a triad has a casino to launder money, then they wouldn't need bank – because it’s a redundancy. That’s not the case.
When the criminal wants to spend the money he washed at the casino, he still needs one.
Gregory Coleman is the Retired Special Agent for the FBI focusing on financial crimes. We heard from him in the Singapore Group episode.
MPN: So if I laundered money in Cambodia and I lived in Bangkok or Singapore or China, then I would transfer it out again like via the Swift system. Right. And then it would be clean.
COLEMAN: Right, exactly, yeah. The casino becomes an entry point. Right. It becomes a conduit for the money. But ultimately underlying all of that is a traditional banking system in order to move the money.
Traditional banks have departments that monitor suspicious transactions. They’re required by law to report them to the authorities.
MPN: So am I right to assume that if you are a triad or some kind of criminal syndicate, it could be very useful to have either a bank of your own or a bank that does your bidding?
COLEMAN: No question. Not only was it, was it beneficial back then, it's beneficial now. I mean, it's that that has not changed. I mean, and whether it's a triad or whether it's La Cosa Nostra or any other, it's all the same. It's exactly the same.
[BREAK]
John had never worked in Cambodia, so he didn’t know the answer to this question. But to me it’s plausible that – in 1995 -- that the Ah Kong may have wanted a bank of their own. It would be an expansion of the money-laundering venture that was NagaWorld.
It’s possible Ngor was killed over the lost opportunity cost of the failed bank license deal. that could reach into millions of dollars of lost revenue, for the Ah Kong, or Mr. X.
Once again, the first thing anyone would know about Haing Ngor, is that he had friends in high places. It would be far too dangerous to kill him in Cambodia. So you’d have to go after him some place else. Maybe Chinatown, in LA.
My third plausible scenario: Ngor was killed over some combination of both : his debt and how he blew the bank license deal. The man was skating on very thin ice.
[BREAK]
My interviews with Charlie and John offer possible resolution to the Haing Ngor mystery. Again, I haven’t proven anything. But all roads have brought me here.
After Ngor was shot, that creepy guy who appeared at the crime scene, who said he was looking for his mother? To me - that was most likely a triad member, who came up with a lame excuse for why he was there, when he was really trying to confirm that Ngor was in fact dead.
Perhaps he was he same person who called Ngor’s hotel in Phnom Penh, claiming to be family, and telling the hotel manager not to let anyone in Ngor’s room. Perhaps there was evidence, detailing Ngor’s association with NagaWorld or the Ah Kong.
Obviously that’s speculation. But it’s a narrative that reconciles those details from the LAPD’s own records that they never pursued back in 1996.
[MINI-BREAK]
An obvious question Aaron and I had for John: since he never worked in Cambodia, could he put us in touch with people who did? In Haing Ngor’s day? People who would know even more about the scene at NagaWorld? Bernard Heng died in Cambodia in 2023. But there are others.
He could, he said. But right now it would be extremely difficult. In January 2026, Cambodia extradited the head of the Prince Group, to China. It’s a Chinese conglomerate that served as a cover for a massive online fraud organization – you know, the kind forcing modern-day slaves to carry out cyber-scams, like we heard about in my “Metastasis” episode. The extradition came after the US Department of Justice and the UK launched a coordinated operation against the Prince Group.
Since then, John said, his Ah Kong friends have gone into hiding. He’s still in touch, but they’re only calling him up at random moments, on burner phones.
Still – Aaron and I intend to keep our feet in the door.
[MINI-BREAK]
In a bit of bright news, Jason Chan was released from ICE custody earlier this year. He’s one of the trio of teenagers we believe was wrongfully convicted of Ngor’s murder, and a client of the Innocence Center.
We spoke on the phone for the first time. Jason explained that he’s still not entirely out of the woods: he could still face deportation to China. He’s remarkably fatalistic about it. He's got distant family there. And after 30 years locked up for a crime he did not commit, he can probably survive anything.
Tak Sun Tan, another of that trio, also faces possible deportation - to Cambodia. Indra Lim, the third of the group, is a US citizen. He is living a quiet life in California.
[MINI-BREAK]
I’m not closing my Haing Ngor investigation – there are still some loose threads I want to pull at. But I will be taking a break.
This has been a three-year passion project. 1990’s Cambodia changed my life for the better. As I said at the start of this project, it made me feel – for the very first time - like I was becoming the person I was meant to be. I’m far from alone with that. And for so many of us, our experience was informed by Haing Ngor’s portrayal of journalist Dith Pran, in "The Killing Fields."
I hope you think I’ve done some justice to Haing Ngor’s story.
[AUDIO]
My name is Patricia Nunan, and this is Who Killed Haing Ngor?
My thanks to my Singaporean friends who helped me out behind the scenes.
I will be releasing a bonus episode in the coming weeks, with some of the material on my cutting room floor, to offer a broader look at some of the points I touched upon this season.
If you knew Haing Ngor personally, and would like to contribute, please email me at whokilledhaingngor@gmail.com. I’m on Signal and Telegram as mpnunan. I’m also on Substack as mpnunan.
If you have a question, please feel free to reach out. And if you’d like to support the investigation, there’s a donation button on the webpage, whokilledhaingngor.com
Thank you for listening.