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Can a mysterious person message you on social media?Hi“? I never answer
Probably not, but they are Southeast Asian crooks under the control of Chinese cyber gangs.That little “hello” is one of their strategies, according to this year’s report VOD, the Pulitzer-worthy Cambodian news agency. Curiosity is born in the victim of the scam, aka “Mark”, and a conversation begins.
As many as 100,000 foreigners work for cybercriminals in Cambodia, according to the Interior Ministry’s Secretary of State. Sock FalBut the Cambodian government has done little to shut down the fraudulent factories they are often imprisoned for.
In this week’s report, los angeles times “The Cambodian government has given Chinese crime syndicates the freedom to bring in tens of thousands of foreign men and women.
Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysians, Taiwanese, Indonesians, Burmese, and Thais are among those trapped on the premises of scammers, sometimes to the point of being self-contained. there is town Each holds thousands. A security guard takes a passport from the victim and stands guard at the door. The worker is in debt, and only $30,000 per person can buy him freedom.
Part of the compound is a group of hotels and casinos located in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Scams include gambling, romance, and pornography. Fraudsters who don’t cooperate get beaten, electrocuted, sold, or worse.
Employees sell messaging apps containing their photos for thousands of dollars per person. had one Man Bloody and missing fingers. One gang allegedly sent another to an underground blood bank. took his blood Many times they had to cut his thighs to find the veins and keep the flow going.
After news reports, the emergence of videos, and diplomatic pressure to release certain prisoners of war, Cambodian authorities finally conducted raids in September. , the Chinese and Cambodian regimes have a different view. While some raids demonstrate the rule of law, scammers have traveled by bus to less visible parts of Southeast Asia, such as Myanmar and Laos.
The Times claims a comfortable relationship between officials and the Chinese syndicate, drawing attention to Cambodia’s rampant corruption and its ties to China.
Chinese Police and the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia rejected An enslaved Chinese man named Lin (VOD changed his real name to protect him) at a hotel complex controlled by a gang with links to legitimate Chinese companies and Cambodian authorities. did).
Lynn was captured, robbed of her cell phone, and forced to work in a romance scam targeting women between the ages of 25 and 40 in Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, Europe and elsewhere. .
The detainee only returned the mobile phone as a reward for seemingly participating in a scam to win the trust of his arrestee. I contacted a non-profit rescue group.
Gangs detain unwilling scammers inside large business establishments disguised as hotel groups and technology centers.
Rescue teams from China, Cambodia and Vietnam help release detainees, including one who was renamed “Zhang” by VOD. According to VOD, “Chan eventually got in touch with a rescue team run by a Chinese entrepreneur, and was sent daily until early November when Cambodian military police broke into the ‘Crown’ compound in Sihanoukville and took Chan out.” Text said he sent a message.
Sihanoukville is a shady casino town on the Cambodian coast.
In another operation to “arrest” Chinese and Thai slaves, cambodia police Their process, raids and interrogations were kept secret from the Thai police, who initiated the action and wanted more direct involvement. Thai police issued the Thai man 71 warrants for her, but only 21 of them resulted in his repatriation. Cambodian authorities did not release a Chinese fraudster Thai police tried to arrest.
A similar Chinese gang has ties to Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO). report For example, it was revealed that Chinese, Malaysian, and Burmese were enslaved and lured the marked victims into online gambling via chat. Cyber slaves in the Philippines are bought and sold in the same way as in Cambodia.
Chinese gangs are extending modern-day slavery from Beijing-backed versions of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region to far beyond China’s borders and into Southeast Asia. This is our own future if we allow the Communist Party of China (CCP) to continue moving toward its goal of world domination. Exporting Chinese gangs around China is one of many ways Beijing expands its malevolent influence.
Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Epoch Times.
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Anders Corr holds a BA/MA in Political Science from Yale University (2001) and a PhD in Political Science from Harvard University (2008). He is a principal at Corr Analytics Inc., publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, and has conducted extensive research in North America, Europe and Asia. His recent publications include The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy, and Hegemony (2021) and Great Powers, Grand Strategies: the New Game in the South China Sea (2018).