(MENAFN- Asia Times)
BANGKOK – Beijing and Bangkok are trying to stop criminal gangs from China scamming and kidnapping Chinese travelers in Thailand, causing frightened Chinese to cancel their holidays to this tourist-dependent nation, which they increasingly perceive as lawless and dangerous.
“I have instructed security agencies to raise the level of security for tourists,” Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said in January after two high-profile Chinese disappeared in Thailand and emerged after being trapped in Myanmar.“Tourism is the country's main source of income. I don't want it to be affected.”
Scammers even imitated President Donald Trump's voice in a failed attempt to convince Ms. Paetongtarn to send money to Hong Kong.
Organized crime gangs from China allegedly influence Thailand's interior ministry, police, and immigration department to get lengthy Thai visas, invest in property, run nightclubs, marry Thais, smuggle drugs, and use this relatively laidback Southeast Asian country as a hedonistic sanctuary, officials said.
Americans are estimated to have lost US$3.5 billion to“China-origin criminal networks” operating internet scams from Southeast Asia during 2023, the Washington-based US Institute of Peace (USIP) said.
“The United States and China [are] the two most strongly affected victims of the online scamming industry,” USIP said in a report on Chinese-dominated transnational crime based in Southeast Asia.
To staff the illegal cyber call centers in Myanmar, unsuspecting Chinese and other nationalities are lured to Thailand by offers of high-paying jobs including housing, food, and other perks, according to Chinese officials.
After the victims arrive, they are allegedly grabbed, smuggled over the border, and enslaved in heavily guarded compounds, they say.
In Myanmar, they are forced to sit at computer terminals and use the internet to find people overseas and rob them through lengthy, elaborate“pig butchering” scams known in Chinese as“sha zhu pan.”
Scammers use the lure of easy profits, sincere romantic love, or other rewards to trick people into transferring money to the gangs.
Most scam centers are in Myanmar, a war-torn country also known as Burma, but some are also in Cambodia, Laos and elsewhere.
In Myanmar, they are difficult to shut down because fraudsters are based in areas held by minority ethnic guerrillas fighting for autonomy or independence along France-sized Myanmar's eastern, northern, and western frontiers.
In Cambodia, they are based in cities such as Sihanoukville and Poipet and allegedly protected by violence and bribes.
Investigators and security forces believe most of the operations are run by Chinese gangs based in China. The numbers of fraudsters and victims are staggering.
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