The gangs that kidnap Asians and force them to commit cyberfraud
"The only hope for democracy is for politicians to stand up to political parties "Supreme Court confirmation signals collapse of American democracy. Could it happen here?""
Though democracies struggle to survive in places, they sure as hell beat any alternative. When authoritarian governments in countries as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar allow kidnapping on an industrial level as we read here to flourish give me any chaotic democracy any day.
Syndicates in Cambodia and Myanmar have coerced thousands into scamming others
[A pedestrian walks past a construction site in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, on Monday, July 8, 2019. In Sihanoukville, a once-sleepy resort town, Cambodians are betting that an infusion of Chinese-built infrastructure will pay off with jobs and prosperity. The influx is tied to Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious plan to build an estimated $1 trillion worth of infrastructure across Asia and parts of Africa, dwarfing the post-World War II Marshall Plan. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Oct 6th 2022 | SINGAPORE
THINGS WERE looking up for Bilce Tan. The 41-year-old Malaysian had lost his job at the height of the pandemic and had spent months looking for work. Then in May, a fantastic opportunity came his way. After multiple interviews, a Malaysian company offered him a job as a business-development lead at their office in Sihanoukville, a resort town in Cambodia. The company would pay him 12,000 ringgit ($2,588) a month—far more than he could make in Malaysia. The benefits included free room and board at an apartment block that boasted a gym. Mr Tan accepted.
It was not long after he arrived in Sihanoukville that Mr Tan began to feel uneasy. At the resort where his employers had their office, armed guards patrolled the boundaries. The walls were topped with barbed wire. During training, his instructors taught him how to defraud people online. When he protested, his bosses shrugged. There was no way out of the compound, they told him. He was trapped.
Mr Tan’s story is a common one. Over the past few years, tens of thousands of Asians have been lured to casinos and resorts in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, only to find that their “employers” are in fact criminals who force their “new hires” to work in illegal online-gambling or scamming outfits.
The cons are sophisticated. Mr Tan was furnished with fake social-media accounts, ten mobile phones, a list of targets and information about their assets, relationships and education, as well as scripts tailored to different types of prey. His handlers taught him how to win over vulnerable people like pensioners and single parents by chatting with them every day.
His trainers also supplied him with photos and videos to support the back stories of his many personas. Once the mark’s trust had been gained, the real scam began. Rather than asking for money directly, as in a traditional sting, he urged the victim to deposit cryptocurrencies in an investment platform manipulated by the criminals. The sums involved grew bigger and bigger. Often the mark would, at first, be able to make small withdrawals. Satisfied that the platform was legitimate, the target would deposit ever more. Then, one day, the invented persona would disappear, leaving behind a baffled and broke victim. (Mr Tan claims he never managed to con anyone.)
The 1,200 victims of similar scams known to the Global Anti-Scam Organisation, a support group, have collectively lost $250m. Twice that amount was lost by those who contacted CipherBlade, an investigation firm, last year. Total losses for 2021 may have been in the tens of billions, since the “vast majority” of victims do not report the crime, reckons CipherBlade. Using official estimates of scale and revenue figures reported by witness testimonies, the International Justice Mission (IJM), an NGO, calculates that syndicates in Cambodia take in at least $12bn a year from online scams.
The schemes are organised by ethnic-Chinese gangs, which sometimes collaborate with their local counterparts, says Jeremy Douglas of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. At first the criminals invested in casinos—ideal venues for money-laundering. When the Chinese authorities cracked down on illicit domestic gambling a decade ago, the syndicates moved their operations south, finding a hospitable environment in the lawless eastern bits of Myanmar and the scores of special economic zones across Indochina (see map), where local authorities seem to believe that they lack jurisdiction.
With the closure of borders at the onset of the pandemic, the casinos’ patrons, most of whom were Chinese, vanished. So the syndicates went online and cast a wider net, targeting the Chinese diaspora and anyone else with money, wherever they lived. They quickly turned their sights on Americans, Australians, Europeans and the middle classes of South-East Asia, too. But to hook them, they would need digitally savvy workers who could speak English or South-East Asian languages.
The syndicates procured their workforce by entrapping people like Mr Tan. Though some work willingly, many are held against their will. According to the Cambodian government, the syndicates employ between 80,000 and 100,000 foreigners—a reasonable but perhaps conservative estimate, says Jacob Sims of IJM. Most are deceived into travelling to Cambodia.
The first reports of human trafficking emerged in local media in early 2021. IJM began conducting rescues in April of that year, working in collaboration with the Cambodian police and relevant embassies. Since then, foreign diplomats in Cambodia have been working frantically to extract their citizens. Some are released when their families pay thousands of dollars in ransom. Others manage to escape. A few throw themselves off balconies. The governments of at least eight Asian countries have warned their citizens about too-good-to-be-true jobs in Cambodia.
At first the Cambodian government stuck its head in the sand. But with pressure from China and other countries mounting, Hun Sen, the prime minister, last month announced a crackdown on “illegal gambling”, an umbrella term for criminality associated with casinos. Since then the authorities in Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh, the capital, have conducted raids on the biggest compounds, arresting hundreds of people. But even if Cambodia does manage to boot out the cyber-scammers, they will simply relocate to more-welcoming spots in Laos or Myanmar.
Free and safely back in Malaysia, Mr Tan is one of the lucky ones. Yet he struggles to see it that way. Before he escaped, his captors took his bank cards and phone. They then locked him out of his bank accounts, preventing him from accessing his life savings. Before he had a chance to explain to his wife that he had been kidnapped, she blocked his number. His former captors began posting her personal information online. She believes Mr Tan was responsible and now wants a divorce. Mr Tan escaped. But, like victims the world over, he too has paid a steep price. ¦
Inside the 'living hell' of Cambodia's scam operations
Issued on: 09/11/2022 - 04:32Modified: 09/11/2022 - 04:31
Dozens of casinos sprang up in recent years in Sihanoukville following Chinese investment, making the city a hub for gamblers and drawing in international crime groups STR AFP
Sihanoukville (Cambodia) (AFP) – Trafficked, beaten and locked up far from his family in China, Lu was one of thousands of people in Cambodia forced to operate online scams to line their captors' pockets.
Covid shutdowns had left the builder out of work, so when he heard he could earn $2,000 a month on a construction project in Cambodia, he jumped at the chance.
But he soon realised he had been lured by a scamming gang to a compound in the seaside resort of Sihanoukville, along with hundreds of others.
There he was forced to work 12 to 16 hour shifts, trawling social media and dating apps on a hunt for victims to scam out of huge sums.
"Once I arrived it was too late to escape," Lu told AFP. "But as long as I was alive, I would keep trying."
People from countries around Asia -- including Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bangladesh and India -- have been sucked into similar operations.
Some, like 34-year-old Lu, have made it out, though thousands of others are feared still trapped.
A victim of a Chinese scamming gang shows a scar on his leg after he was tortured STR AFP
In August, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Vitit Muntarbhorn, said the trafficking victims "were experiencing a living hell often resulting in torture and even death".
- Metal bars and barbed wire -
Sihanoukville was once a sleepy resort town, but it was transformed by a vast influx of Chinese investment.
Dozens of casinos sprang up in recent years, making it a hub for Chinese gamblers and drawing in international crime groups.
As travel restrictions bit during the pandemic, these groups shifted their focus.
Jeremy Douglas, of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said "criminal groups moved casino businesses online, and some then did a pivot and added online and phone scams".
[Image invisible to me - ]Steel bars cover the windows of empty buildings inside the Chinatown district in Sihanoukville in Preah Sihanouk province STR AFP
One gang member told AFP on condition of anonymity that the first people to fall prey to operations like his were Chinese nationals already in Cambodia.
Then gangs started trafficking people into the country.
Douglas of the UNODC said "thousands, and some have estimated possibly tens of thousands" of people have been ensnared.
To stop victims from escaping, compounds were installed with metal window bars and barbed wire.
"Once they arrived in the compound, they could not leave," the gang member said.
"People were beaten or tortured and sold if they refused to scam others."
Within Cambodia, some were sold on to other gangs, the source said. Those with good IT or English-language skills could be sold for up to $50,000.
- 'The real mafia' -
AFP interviewed four trafficking victims who said they too received lucrative job offers during the pandemic.
A 38-year-old Malaysian Chinese man called Roy described flying to Phnom Penh and being met by a woman in smart office wear who whisked him through immigration and into a car for the five-hour drive to Sihanoukville.
There, he was taken to a complex of apartment blocks a dozen or so storeys tall, housing a mix of accommodation and office rooms.
The Binh Di River that Vietnamese forced labour workers swam across in August after escaping a scamming gang based in a casino in Kandal province in Cambodia STR AFP
"It just looked like a normal office, with three rows of tables with monitors and keyboards, just like a cybercafe," Roy told AFP.
But he said "once you get in you know you're not doing customer service".
Roy and others like him had their passports taken away, and were instructed to set up fake profiles on apps and dating sites including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Under the constant threat of violence, they would groom targets to pour money into crypto currency or other investment platforms.
Others were forced to build online "love" relationships with their targets and to scam them under the guise of needing help to pay debts off.
There are no reliable figures on how much money the gangs have netted from the scams, though the UN's Douglas said the numbers are "staggering".
It is not clear where the money ends up, he added, though criminal proceeds are often bundled together with online betting profits, with many of the scam compounds located near legal gambling businesses.
The gang member in Sihanoukville told AFP he did not know who he was ultimately working for.
"We don't know who is who," he said. "They are the real mafia."
'Shock, kick, shock'
Forced scammers who resisted paid a high price. Construction worker Lu said he was "beaten quite often" because he was caught trying to escape.
Others said gang members used electric batons to inflict shocks, or forced workers into rooms too small to stand in, depriving them of water, food and light for hours.
Buffalos walk in a field in front of the empty buildings of in the Chinatown district in Sihanoukville STR AFP
"They ask someone to lie down and then kick them, like a dog," Roy said.
"Sometimes (they would) get an electric shock, kick and shock. They would get a five-minute to 10-minute beating."
Some, like Roy, were fortunate.
After being told he would have to buy his way out for $20,000, he was rescued after contacting Taiwanese victims group the Global Anti-Trafficking Organisation (GASO).
The group works with Cambodian officials to facilitate rescues and repatriate citizens.
Others have taken a more dramatic approach -- in August dozens of Vietnamese workers escaped a casino in southern Kandal province and swam across a river back to their homeland.
Attention on the issue has grown: in July the United States downgraded Cambodia in its annual human trafficking report.
After months of official denials, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered a hunt for ringleaders and authorities launched a string of high-profile raids in August.
In September, police freed more than 1,000 foreigners from three Sihanoukville compounds.
At one site, a swoop netted nearly 9,000 mobile phones, 800 computers -- and chillingly, handcuffs and electric shock instruments.
It was during one such raid that Lu was released.
- Crackdown or relocation? -
Still, international observers and rights groups are sceptical of the depth of the government's crackdown.
Jacob Sims, International Justice Mission's Cambodia director, said the efforts need to go further than raids and rescues.
"Criminal accountability for the ringleaders of the transnational organised crime networks is absolutely essential if we hope to eradicate this issue," he said.
There are fears that rather than shutting down, the groups are simply relocating.
"Today it is an operation in Cambodia, but tomorrow a gang under pressure uproots and shifts to Myanmar, Laos or the Philippines -- and this has happened," the UN's Douglas said.
Back in Cambodia, those rescued by police, like Lu, face an uncertain future.
While he has evaded immigration detention, he told AFP he cannot afford to return to his wife and nine-year-old child in China.
A spokesperson for China's foreign ministry told AFP the government was working with Cambodia and other countries to fight transnational crime, and that it "resolutely upholds both the safety and legal rights and privileges of Chinese citizens abroad".
Lu said he had received no help from the Chinese embassy.
"The Chinese embassy only has one thing to say: 'Adults have to pay for their decisions,'" he said.
Far-right fail - One Nation, UAP and ‘freedom movement’ parties fail to make an impact
"The only hope for democracy is for politicians to stand up to political parties "Supreme Court confirmation signals collapse of American democracy. Could it happen here?" "
Despite a pandemic, tens of millions of dollars of advertising, and a swing away from major parties, far-right groups failed at the ballot box.
Cam Wilson May 22, 2022
One Nation Senate candidate George Christensen and One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson (Image: AAP/Darren England)
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, and parties hoping to court the freedom movement have been almost shut out completely, with only a Senate position or two still within their grasp.
With the Senate count still under way, it appears far-right, conspiracy-promoting groups have been unable to capitalise on a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, a billionaire magnate’s seemingly endless advertising coffers, and a move away from the two major parties.
Palmer’s near-$100 million spend has barely improved the UAP’s showing from the 2019 election. Nationwide, the party added less than 1% to bring its primary vote to 4.3% in the House of Representatives, claiming no seats and losing its parliamentary leader Craig Kelly’s seat in Hughes. However, it did see big spikes in its votes in outer-suburban seats in Queensland and Victoria and may might pick up a Senate spot in Victoria.
One Nation had a deceptively poor night. National averages show a swing towards it of nearly 2% — but that’s a result of running candidates nationwide rather than in selected seats. It actually went backwards in seats like Hunter and Hinkler where it had strong 2019 showings. Lifetime leader Pauline Hanson’s return to the Senate is looking far from certain.
There’s also a long shot it might pick up another senator in South Australia.
Other parties and candidates aligned with the freedom movement have failed to make any real electoral impact. The Liberal Democrats, the Great Australian Party, and the Informed Medical Options Party won’t reach the 4% threshold for election funding. Known anti-vaccine and conspiracy figures such as Monica Smit, Morgan C Jonas, and Riccardo Bosi
received a few thousand votes at best and aren’t in a position to even affect the race with their preferences.
After years of pandemic restrictions and the salience of vaccines and their mandates, the freedom movement has failed to make a real electoral impact. Gains from one of the similar anti-government, individualistic and conspiracy-stoking groups often came at the expense of another’s.
If anything, last night’s result suggests that there’s a ceiling on the movement as a tiny but loud minority in the Australian electorate.
Associate Editor @cameronwilson Cam Wilson is Crikey’s associate editor. He previously worked as a reporter at the ABC, BuzzFeed, Business Insider and Gizmodo. He primarily covers internet culture and tech in Australia.
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