ICE arrests Saipan casino billionaire Lijie Cui

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Lijie Cui, majority shareholder of erstwhile Asian casino operator Imperial Pacific International Holdings, on Tuesday. According to Marianas Variety, the 68-year-old is in custody at a US Department of Corrections facility in Susupe, Saipan.

IPI once operated Imperial Pacific Palace, a casino resort in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Saipan is the largest island in the CNMI, an unincorporated US territory.

For years, the Saipan casino was mired in controversy. It started in 2016, when IPI opened a temporary casino in a Saipan mall while building a permanent, $600 million beachfront resort.

At first, its high-roller casino was one of the highest-grossing in the world, turning over more per-table bets than casinos in Macau and Las Vegas. In 2017, IPI reported VIP volume of $49.5 billion on an average of 18 tables.

But IPI was dogged by allegations of money laundering and forced labour. IPI also failed to pay its contractors and fell behind in the payment of licensing and other fees to the CNMI. US gaming veteran Joshua Gray sued IPI for discriminatory hiring and retaliatory practices, winning a $5 million judgment.

Success was short-lived

The resort was still unfinished in March 2020, when it closed due to Covid-19. And it was all downhill from there.

Construction came to a halt in 2021, and the property has never reopened. In 2023, CNMI casino commissioners suspended the operator’s gaming licence. In 2024, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange delisted the company. IPI filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy that April, citing more than $165.8 million in liabilities. Finally, last February, Team King Investment LLC, the highest bidder at a court-approved auction, paid just $12.9 million for IPI’s assets, including the deteriorating resort.

Immigration authorities have not disclosed a reason for Cui’s arrest. But according to the Pacific Island Times, as a foreign investor in a US jurisdiction, she would have been required to maintain a valid E‑2C long‑term investor visa, which may have expired.

Cui is a Chinese national and Hong Kong resident. A 2018 Forbes profile described her as an entrepreneur with a net worth of $1.1 billion. The same profile noted that Cui’s son, Ji Xiaobo, former executive with Macau junket promoter Hengsheng Group, was the “mastermind” of the failed Saipan project.