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If you were to build a giant multibillion dollar casino resort, where would you choose to put it? Auckland? Macau? Las Vegas? London? New York? How about a small pacific island and US territory hundreds of miles from any mainland? The latter is what one Chinese company chose to try, only to fail and go bankrupt in spectacular fashion. So where did it all go wrong?

Well, it's a story that involves two giant bejewelled dragons, a tribal burial ground, billions of dollars and an investigation from the US Department of Justice. All on a Pacific island around 3000 miles north of New Zealand. This is the wild tale of Imperial Pacific Palace Saipan.

A $9 Billion Casino Resort on a Remote Island

Imperial Pacific International is a Chinese investment firm based in Hong Kong. Through its subsidiary Best Sunshine International, IPI had been operating several small scale gambling parlors and pokies casinos on the unincorporated US territory and Pacific island chain the Northern Mariana Islands.

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The casinos - mostly on the largest island Saipan - were bringing in tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue and providing much needed taxes for the island. Although Saipan does get tourists from Australia and New Zealand, many of the gamblers were bought over in special gambling trips from China, known as junkets. IPI would arrange transport and advertise the trips on the Chinese mainland.

In 2014, IPI and Best Sunshine were licensed to build and operate a 4200 room hotel and a huge casino with more than 1000 table games and 10,000 slots. The scale would rival some of the bigger casinos in Macau and Las Vegas, all built on an island that is home to just under 40,000 people.

High Rolling Chinese Junkets Bring the Cash

Imperial Pacific Palace Saipan, an incredible luxury structure of immense scale, was expected to cost $8 billion. IPI raised nearly $1 billion in initial investment between 2014 and 2016 and construction began.

The project was beset by problems from the start. Within days of the groundwork being laid, an ancient burial ground belonging to the native Chamorros people was disturbed and remains uncovered. This caused much local controversy, but the project pushed ahead.

Scheduled for opening in 2016, delays due to local legal challenges over the burial ground and alleged illegal waste dumping meant the casino opened in 2017. At that time, only the main casino building was finished, with the rest  still under construction.

Despite that, Chinese junket customers flocked to the newly opened casino in numbers. High limit players were flown in on chartered private jets, picked up from Saipan's small airport and taken to the opulent casino in one of IPI's many luxury vehicles it purchased for the purpose. The operator shipped in half a dozen Rolls Royce cars from the mainland, some 1000 miles away, including two Ghosts ($150,000 new) and a Phantom ($500,000).

For a while, the strategy worked. In 2017, the VIP gambling rooms at the half-finished resort reported $50 billion in revenue from under 100 gambling tables. But, under the surface, cracks were beginning to show in IPI's operation.

The CCP, FBI and DoJ Get Involved

All the while Chinese gamblers were being ferried across Saipan in luxury British motors to gamble literal millions at the Imperial Pacific Palace, workers building the rest of the resort were reportedly living and working in squalid and hazardous conditions.

A 2016 report from Bloomberg alleged possible labor violations, with IPI accused of hiring illegal Chinese immigrants on what is, technically, US soil. This lead to an investigation from the FBI into the project. IPI denied any wrongdoing, and claimed to immediately fix the issues. However, US law enforcement found something else while they were investigating. And the case was on.

Meanwhile, IPI was still making bank. However, in 2019 the Chinese Communist Party began cracking down on casino junket sales and advertising. This hit Imperial Pacific's business model hard. Chinese junket business fell off by about 50% in just a few months, and the huge casino project was left reeling.

IPI Goes Bankrupt and the Dream Is Over

Then came the second combo punch - the COVID-19 pandemic. With Saipan's small population and limited emergency response capacity, the entire island was locked off for months. This completely destroyed what remained of Imperial Pacific Saipan's business, and it did not reopen.

Five years later and the Chinese operator is bankrupt. The US Department of Justice and the FBI have an ongoing investigation into money laundering and other financial crimes at IPI, including a raid its Hong Kong offices. The investigation also swept up former Mariana Islands Governor Ralph Torres, over his financial connections to the casino operator.

As for Imperial Pacific Palace Saipan? The 19,000 square metre resort sits derelict and half-finished, with its luxury cars, premium gaming tables and huge jewel-encrusted dragon statues sold off at auction. It is estimated it could cost an additional $150 million for the next owner to complete, if they wished.