CNMI lawmaker Rep. Marissa Flores has called on the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) to either revoke the casino license of Imperial Pacific International immediately or resign following months of back and forth between the regulator and the embattled operator.
Taking the opportunity to speak during last week’s meeting of the CCC, Flores said IPI’s casino license “must be revoked effective immediately – not next month, not next week,” because it is driving away both investors and tourists, according to a report by Marianas Variety.
“The NMI government has spent too much money and wasted too much time already on the failed casino-hotel,” she said. “The casino is a failure. Factually and legally speaking the casino is a liability to our economy. Its very existence caused the CNMI to be blacklisted. Honest people do not want to invest in a business venture that has been federally investigated. Tourists do not appreciate an abandoned building in the middle of their vacation.”
Flores called on the CCC to explain why IPI’s casino license had not been revoked more than two-and-a-half years after it was suspended in April 2021, asking, “What is the commission waiting for? Enough is enough. Do your job. Show us some professionalism and revoke the license. If not, then I am demanding on behalf of everyone in the Commonwealth, definitely those in my precinct, to be informed as to why this license should not be revoked.”
She also pointed to a recent finding by the Beijing Municipal First Intermediate People’s Court which ruled former IPI project director Ji Xiaobo – the son of IPI’s majority shareholder Cui Lijie – was head of a criminal syndicate.
“Apparently you did not regulate them well enough, you failed to conduct your due diligence,” Flores said. “On behalf of the people of the Commonwealth … please resign.”
In response, CCC chairman Edward C. Deleon Guerrero said IPI’s license would already have been revoked if not for the process being caught up in the law system, but outlined his expectation that an ongoing appeal by IPI over a recent court ruling that denied the relevance of arbitration proceedings would not prove successful.
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