Chinese & Southeast Asia (Cambodian) Partners Are Taking CybercrimeCybercrime Cybercrime is a crime related to technology, computers, and the Internet. Typical cybercrime are performed by a computer against a computer, or by a hacker using software to attack computers or networks. To An Industrial Level
Prior to the pandemic, global transnational cybercrime was actually in decline. There were fewer victims in 2019 than in 2018 or 2017. SCARS Analytics showed a reduction of about40% per year for those 3 years. But with the pandemic, scamsScams A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime - is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost. immediately increased by 2,000% or more. Then it doubled again from 2020 to 2021 with the introduction and explosion of Pig ButcheringPig Butchering Sha Zhu Pan 殺主盤 “Pig Butchering” This is a scam type that originated in China involving the scammer developing a relationship with the victim - sometimes romantic sometimes not - and leading the victim to invest in a fake company or asset. These typically target smart younger women. scams – mostly coming from Southeast Asia.
This story is the full background on what is really happening on the ground, its massive scale, and its organization. Also, what makes it more unique is that it also depends on a captive workforce of individuals that are trafficked and held captive by these organizations. While African scammers are organized and have formed large cartels, their workforce is all voluntary, but in Southeast Asia, they are being run by much older criminalCriminal A criminal is any person who through a decision or act engages in a crime. This can be complicated, as many people break laws unknowingly, however, in our context, it is a person who makes a decision to engage in unlawful acts or to place themselves with others who do this. A criminal always has the ability to decide not to break the law, or if they initially engage in crime to stop doing it, but instead continues. organizations out of China (mostly) that are much more comfortable taking what they want and trafficking in people to get it.
The Story
The following is an edited reprint from Brisbane Time presented in the Public Interest. We thank the authors and publishers for their exceptional work!
We are presenting this to help the millions of scamScam A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime - is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost. victims that we serve and support to better understand this new direction in transnational online crime and how significant this is.
The online scammerScammer A Scammer or Fraudster is someone that engages in deception to obtain money or achieve another objective. They are criminals that attempt to deceive a victim into sending more or performing some other activity that benefits the scammer. targeting you could be trapped in a South-East Asian fraudFraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain (money or other assets), or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensation) or criminal law (e.g., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities), or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or mortgage fraud, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements. A fraud can also be a hoax, which is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of materially damaging or depriving a victim. factory
Southeast Asia Scam Factories Map
By Lindsey Kennedy and Nathan Paul Southern // August 21, 2022 // Brisbane Time (copyright acknowledged)
Every year, Australians of all ages and backgrounds are scammed out of billions of dollars, with fraudsters developing more sophisticated and persuasive tactics all the time. But the financial and emotional devastation wreaked on victims of scams only tells half the story. All across South-East Asia, heavily guarded, sinister compounds have sprung up to house these industrial-scale scam operations – and to trap people forced to work for them in terrifying conditions.
“The thing is, people on both ends are victims. The people who are forced to come in and do this, they’re being trafficked in, and then they’re forced to meet targets with respect to their victims,” explains Jason Tower, Myanmar country director at the United States Institute of Peace, who has conducted research into the rise of online scam centres and human trafficking rings across the region and the implications for regional security.
In Australia, these targets set by scam organisations around the world are reflected in record numbers of people being defrauded of their money. A report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in July found that well over $2 billion was lost to scammers in 2021, including at least $701 million reported to have been stolen on investment scamsInvestment Scams When a caller claims to have a promising investment opportunity that will help you get rich quick, it's likely a scam. and $142 million to “romance scams” – where a scammer using fake social media profiles strikes up a relationship with a stranger, eventually persuading them to either transfer money directly or “invest” it in a fake trading or crypto site before disappearing along with the funds.
While people aged over 65 lost the most money to scammers (and were the least likely to report it) significant numbers of Australians of all ages fell prey to scams, with people aged 18-34 reporting $53 million worth of losses to Scamwatch. The report also found that more and more scammers demand payment in cryptocurrency, with a 216 per cent increase in this payment method in one year.
While it’s impossible for most victims to trace the precise locations of the scam operations that took their money, these findings certainly correlate with the methods known to be used by criminal groups in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos over the past few years.
South-East Asia-based scams proliferated during the pandemic, especially in casino towns emptied out by the lack of international tourists – especially Chinese tourists, who are still largely unable to travel. Many of these towns were already notorious for out-of-control organised crime activity and money launderingMoney laundering Money laundering is the illegal process of concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions. Money laundering can be done through various mediums, leveraging a variety of payment vehicles, people and institutions. long before the COVID-19 outbreak, but faced with a sudden collapse in their usual income streams, Chinese gangsters running casinos in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar shifted operations online, using fraudulent betting sites to squeeze even more money out of online gamblers and branching out into a range of other internet-based scams.
Documents shared with The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age by a cybersecurity researcher at Vietnam’s National Computer Security Centre, known by his “ethical hackerHacker A computer hacker is a computer expert who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term hacker has become associated in popular culture with a security hacker – someone who utilizes their technical know-how of bugs or exploits to break into computer systems and access data which would otherwise be unavailable to them – hacking can also be utilized by legitimate figures in legal situations. For example, law enforcement agencies sometimes use hacking techniques in order to collect evidence on criminals and other malicious actors. This could include using anonymity tools (such as a VPN, or the dark web) to mask their identities online, posing as criminals themselves. Likewise, covert world agencies can employ hacking techniques in the legal conduct of their work. Oppositely, hacking and cyber-attacks are used extra- and illegally by law enforcement and security agencies (conducting warrantless activities), and employed by State actors as a weapon of both legal and illegal warfare.” name Hieupc, who managed to gain access to information and back-end systems used by scam centres in Cambodia, show how these criminal organisations operate.
Space within each scam complex is divided between different criminal outfits, with teams of people from various countries, such as Vietnam or China, located on different floors, given a script and tasked with scamming people who speak the same language. Depending on the scam, this might involve persuading people to play online casino games (which never cash out), or using chat appsApps Applications or Apps An application (software), commonly referred to as an ‘app’ is a program on a computer, tablet, mobile phone or device. Apps are designed for specific tasks, including checking the weather, accessing the internet, looking at photos, playing media, mobile banking, etc. Many apps can access the internet if needed and can be downloaded (used) either for a price or for free. Apps are a major point of vulnerability on all devices. Some are designed to be malicious, such as logging keystrokes or activity, and others can even transport malware. Always be careful about any app you are thinking about installing. to lure people into high-yield digital investment platforms, many of which are essentially pyramid schemesPyramid Schemes Pyramid schemes are scams that need a constant flow of new participants to keep them going. They are marketed as multi-level marketing programs or other types of legitimate businesses. They use new recruits’ "investments" to pay “profits” to those participating longer. Pyramid schemes collapse when they can't recruit enough new participants to pay earlier investors. These scams always fail—it’s mathematically guaranteed.. Every few months, the websites or apps used for the scam are shut down and the criminal group switches to a new one with a different name and design – but which functions in the same way. Scammers find victims through social media or by paying YouTubers to advertise their platforms, Hieupc says, and each small company has racked up millions of dollars.
While some people working at these scam centres choose to defraud strangers for a living, crime bosses have found it too difficult to source enough workers willing to run their scams, and have increasingly resorted to tricking people with fraudulent job ads – or even kidnapping them off the street. In South-East Asia’s sprawling compounds, many are now trapped in modern slavery conditions – and subject to horrific treatment if they try to leave.
“With billions of dollars in revenue and protected havens in SEA, these ‘fraud factories’ has spawned a secondary industry of human trafficking to feed their labour-intensive criminal enterprises, resulting in large-scale torture, rape, and other abuses,” says Santiago.
Hieupc’s findings tell the same story. The Chinese and Taiwanese scam bosses running these operations are “dangerous and evil”, he says. They exploit naive people looking for a legal job, keep them captive inside the compounds, force them to work every day from 8am to 11pm, and beat or threaten them if they don’t make enough money. Trying to get out is incredibly dangerous, too. Last year, a 25-year-old Vietnamese man who had been secretly helping Hiepc to hack into a management system and shut down scam operations from the inside managed to escape by jumping from a window, but broke his leg in the process. In January 2021, a group of Vietnamese trafficking victims tried to break out of a compound in Sihanoukville, Cambodia – but while some told Hieupc they had managed to escape, it “turned out like a war with blood and violence”, he says, with several trafficking victims killed and others recaptured by the scam companies.
Some experts estimate that thousands of people are being held against their will and forced to work as scammers in Cambodia. However, our visits to some of the massive, sprawling sites known to be used for online scams in Cambodia and Laos indicated that these numbers may be the tip of the iceberg. In remote, heavily guarded compounds like the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) in Laos – a casino enclave nicknamed Kings Romans – we were shown row after row of newly constructed tower blocks surrounded by barbed wire, which locals and survivorsSurvivor A Scam Survivor is a victim who has been able to fully accept the reality of their situation. That they were the victim of a crime and are not to blame. They are working on their emotional recovery and reduction of any trauma either on their own, through a qualified support organization, or through counseling or therapy. And has done their duty and reported the crime to their local police, national police, and on Anyscam.com say function as dorms for scammers. Clothing hanging from every window suggested these buildings were fully occupied – meaning the number of people kept in modern slavery conditions in just this one site could stretch into tens of thousands.
Meanwhile, stories of similar, giant scam operations have emerged from mega-casino towns recently carved out of the jungle in Myanmar. In Cambodia alone, media reports and accounts from survivors, rescuers and Thai authorities suggest that workers are crammed into repurposed casino-hotels, sprawling dormitory buildings and isolated office blocks throughout the country, including gambling hubs in Sihanoukville, on the coast; Thai and Vietnamese border towns like Poipet and Bavet; and new hubs, like the sleepy tourist town of Kampot, which are being identified all the time. Given the scale of these sites, there are likely hundreds of thousands of people being forced to work in scam centres – and that means potentially millions more people targeted by financial scams in Australia and around the world.
“Malicious cyber activity against Australians is increasing in frequency, scale and impact,” said a spokesperson for the Australian Federal Police in Cambodia, adding that the AFP was working proactively with Cambodian law enforcement to tackle transnational crime such as cybercrime. The AFP was increasingly seeing the use of the internet and digital platforms to recruit and exploit trafficking victims, he said, while scam groups launder their profits online through cryptocurrencies, “which makes it easier for traffickers to receive, hide and move large amounts of money with less risk of being detected.”
However, it seems local policeLocal Police The Local Police is your first responder in most countries. In most English-speaking countries and in Europe report to them first. In other countries look for your national cybercrime police units to report scams to. In the U.S., Canada, & Australia, you must report to the local police first. and government officials are too scared – or unwilling – to shut these operations down.
Owners of these casino-hotels and compounds tend to be extremely well-connected. Take KB Hotel in Sihanoukville, where survivors say they were trafficked and sold to online scam companies. Director Chen Al Len is a business associate of the prime minister’s nephew Hun To, with whom he is listed as a co-director of three companies: Heng He (Cambodia) Commercial Bank, registered in Phnom Penh, and Heng He Ju Long Town Real Estate and Heng Zuan Yule (Ju Long Town), both close to Bavet. Chen Al Len is also reported to be a co-owner of Heng He Casino in Bavet, inside which a newly arrived worker was found hanged inside in June. However, Hun To, who divides his time between Cambodia and Melbourne, does not not have a direct stake in either KB or Heng He Casino.
Some Cambodian police reportedly insist that because workers have signed contracts (albeit to commit crimes) the bosses aren’t holding them captive, they just “do not allow them to leave” – or even that companies whose workers owe them money or time left on these contracts have the right to detain them. The Interior Minister also downplayed a recent rescue operation as settling a “labour dispute”.
Other governments have tried to intervene without much success. In April, Thai police conducted raids on a string of locations in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, and Sihanoukville, accompanied by local police. The Thai authorities were hoping to rescue up to 3000 Thais believed to have been tricked into working for scam operators and held against their will. They managed just 66 – not least, according to the Thai police’s own statement, because of local corruption and resistance on the Cambodian side. At one gated building in Sihanoukville, rather than the Cambodian police demanding entry on their behalf, the Thais had to spend eight hours negotiating with the Chinese owners before paying $1 500 to be allowed in and retrieve just 24 workers trapped inside.
Some countries that have been targeted heavily both by traffickers and scammers have made efforts to educate people back home on the risks. In Thailand, the Golden Triangle ferry crossing to Laos – a common route for young people tricked into working for scam rings based out of Lao casino towns – is papered with posters warning people not to fall for fake job ads. China has also stepped up public education efforts to prevent scam operators targeting its own people – but one outcome of this has been that Chinese scammers have shifted focus to other countries, including in the West. And to target English speakers, they need to get hold of workers who can speak English, too.
“A combination of China’s draconian COVID restrictions and the Chinese government’s public education on this have made it much more difficult for these criminals to traffic Chinese nationals into these scam and fraud zones overseas.” says Tower. “As a result, the criminals are now really going global – targeting victims across the region and beyond.”
These efforts can only succeed if people targeted by scams are willing to come forward and explain what has happened to them – and according to Scamwatch, only 13 per cent of Australian victims ever report it. Without this intelligence, moving forward to protect other victims of scams and of human trafficking becomes a near-impossible task. For anyone caught out by scam companies, it’s vital to appreciate that this is not a something to be ashamed about – these are sophisticated, multi-million-dollar operations that specialise in manipulating people all around the world – and for the person forced to run the scam, the nightmare could be far worse.
Related Stories & More Information
- Source Article: The Laos fraud factory trapping the online scammer targeting you online (brisbanetimes.com.au)
- Scamwatch
- FEATURE-Chinese scammers enslave jobless teachers and tourists in Cambodia | Reuters
- Notorious (theaseanpost.com)
- Organised crime activity (globalinitiative.net)
- Money laundering (treasury.gov)
- Inside Southeast Asia’s Casino Scam Archipelago – The Diplomat
- Meet Cambodia’s cyber slaves | Longform | Al Jazeera
- Inside Southeast Asia’s Casino Scam Archipelago – The Diplomat
- Victims Allege Sihanoukville Precincts With Ties to Major Businesses Are Sites of Scams, Torture, Detention (vodenglish.news)
- Death at Casino, 22 Indonesians Rescued in Bavet (vodenglish.news)
- Cambodian regime figures splash millions on Melbourne properties as death threats escalate – ABC News
- A Friend’s Journey Attempting Rescue From Alleged Slave Compound (vodenglish.news)
- Death at Casino, 22 Indonesians Rescued in Bavet (vodenglish.news)
- ‘How to Help Them?’ Volunteer Stonewalled in Scam Worker Rescues (vodenglish.news)
- Thai Police Visit Concludes With 66 Rescued, Other Victims Moved (vodenglish.news)
- China Issues Warning of Cambodia Scams, as ‘Blood Slave’ Deported (vodenglish.news)
To Learn More Also Look At Our Article Catalogs
Essential Tools For Every Scam Victim From SCARS Publishing
Visit shop.AgainstScams.org
Each is based on our SCARS Team’s 31 plus years of experience.
SCARS Website Visitors get an Extra 10% Discount
Use Discount Code “romanacescamsnow” at Checkout
SCARS GREEN BOOK
Self-Help Self-Paced Recovery Program Guide
LEARN HOW TO RECOVER ON YOUR OWN
This program is designed to help scam victims struggling to recover on their own and for those who want to understand the overall process. You can be using other resources, such as traumaTrauma Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless in a dangerous world. Psychological trauma can leave you struggling with upsetting emotions, memories, and anxiety that won’t go away. It can also leave you feeling numb, disconnected, and unable to trust other people. Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety or other emotional shocks, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated can result in trauma, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective circumstances that determine whether an event is traumatic, but your subjective emotional experience of the event. The more frightened and helpless you feel, the more likely you are to be traumatized. Trauma requires treatment, either through counseling or therapy or through trauma-oriented support programs, such as those offered by SCARS. counselingCounseling Counseling is the professional guidance of the individual by utilizing psychological methods especially in collecting case history data, using various techniques of the personal interview, and testing interests and aptitudes. A mental health counselor (MHC), or counselor, is a person who works with individuals and groups to promote optimum mental and emotional health. Such persons may help individuals deal with issues associated with addiction and substance abuse; family, parenting, and marital problems; stress management; self-esteem; and aging. They may also work with "Social Workers", "Psychiatrists", and "Psychologists". SCARS does not provide mental health counseling. or therapy, qualified support groupsSupport Groups In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic, such as romance scams. Members with the same issues can come together for sharing coping strategies, to feel more empowered and for a sense of community. The help may take the form of providing and evaluating relevant information, relating personal experiences, listening to and accepting others' experiences, providing sympathetic understanding and establishing social networks. A support group may also work to inform the public or engage in advocacy. They can be supervised or not. SCARS support groups are moderated by the SCARS Team and or volunteers., or completely independent – on your own!
The SCARS Steps program is a complete program and is provided for the purpose of helping scam victims to overcome this experience. Throughout this SCARS Steps Program, we speak about issues and challenges that a victim may have and help guide them through their recovery. But each person is different and it is important to understand your own reasons for being vulnerable to being scammed.
After the trauma of being scammed, you need to take steps to recover and move on. This may be an alternative to counseling in the short term, but we still encourage you to seek out professional help & support. Throughout this SCARS Steps Program, we speak about issues, challenges, defects, or problems that a victim may have in a generalized way.
The SCARS GREEN BOOK will help you recover from your scam offline and it will always be there when you need it!
SCARS SLATE BOOK – Let Us Explain What Happened!
A Guide For Families & Friends Of Scam Victims
HOW TO HELP ROMANCE SCAM VICTIMS FOR FAMILIES & FRIENDS OF SCAM VICTIMS
This SCARS Publishing book represents a complete guide to help the families and friends understand how these scams work and how to help the victim.
The SCARS Slate Book should be purchased by family and friends to better understand what happened to the victim and the traumatic impact on them. But it can also be shared by the victim so that they do not have to explain to family and friends about the scam. This publication is to help others to help Scam Victims to make it through this traumatic experience and recover.
Each person is different and it is important to understand how relationship scamsRelationship Scam A Relationship Scam is a one-to-one criminal act that involves a trust relationship and uses deception & manipulation to get a victim to give to the criminal something of value, such as money! Click here to learn more: What Is A Relationship Scam? work and why people are vulnerable; to being scammed, how they were lured in, then groomed and manipulated. This understanding is essential in helping them through the process of ending the scam and then on to recovery. The SCARS Slate Book will provide the information necessary to help support a victim through this process.
SCARS RED BOOK
Your Personal Scam Evidence & Crime Record Organizer
ORGANIZE YOUR INFORMATION TO MAKE THE REPORTING PROCESS SIMPLE!
Helps you get and stay organized. This publication is to help Scam Victims organize their crime information. Complete this information before reporting to the police then bring this book with you
Before or after reporting to the police the RED BOOK gives you a dedicated tool to record all the essential facts of this crime. The Victim, the Scammers, the Money, and your Police interactions. Everything that really matters can be easily recorded for your immediate use and for the future!
As we have seen, money recovery/repayment programs can become available years after the scam ends and you need to keep all the details of this crime in case it is needed. We have also seen scammers being extradited to the U.S. and other countries, this will help in the event you testify or give statements, Additionally, this helps you have your information ready to qualify for victims’ benefits, compensation, or aid.
The Official SCARS RED BOOK is your way of recording all the important facts of this crime so that you do not lose essential information, Complete the RED BOOK then put it away with the confidence that you will have it if or when it is needed.
100% of all profit goes to help SCARS help more scam victims worldwide.
Your generous purchase allows us to maintain our scam avoidance, support, and recovery services. Please help SCARS and stand proud.
PLEASE SHARE OUR ARTICLES WITH YOUR FRIENDS & FAMILY
HELP OTHERS STAY SAFE ONLINE – YOUR KNOWLEDGE CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE!
THE NEXT VICTIM MIGHT BE YOUR OWN FAMILY MEMBER OR BEST FRIEND!
By the Society of Citizens Against Relationship ScamsSCARS SCARS - Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc. A government registered crime victims' assistance & crime prevention nonprofit organization based in Miami, Florida, U.S.A. SCARS supports the victims of scams worldwide and through its partners in more than 60 countries around the world. Incorporated in 2015, its team has 30 years of continuous experience educating and supporting scam victims. Visit www.AgainstScams.org to learn more about SCARS. Inc.
A Worldwide Crime Victims Assistance & Crime Prevention Nonprofit Organization Headquartered In Miami Florida USA & Monterrey NL Mexico, with Partners In More Than 60 Countries
To Learn More, Volunteer, or Donate Visit: www.AgainstScams.org
To see Scammer Photos visit www.ScammerPhotos.com
Contact Us: Contact@AgainstScams.org
Leave A Comment