Chinese Criminals' International Scams & Kidnappings
By Richard S. Ehrlich
BANGKOK, Thailand -- 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-friendly tropical country which they now perceive as wild 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 $3.5 billion to “China-origin criminal networks” operating internet scams from Southeast Asia during 2023, the Washington-based U.S. 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 2024 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 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 allegedly based in cities such as Sihanoukville and Poipet but 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.
"Over 70,000 suspects were arrested and more than 160 victims were rescued during the joint Operation Seagull by Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam between August and December 2024," China's government-controlled Global Times reported on January 21.
In Myanmar, "the 30-some-odd compounds which are there, are all trafficking people and keeping people enslaved,” USIP Burma (Myanmar) country director Jason Tower said in an interview in July.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn meanwhile declined to name the foreign leader's voice which scammers faked in a January phone call to her.
Her father, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, said the gang cloned President Trump's voice.
"The voice was very clear, and I recognized it immediately," Ms. Paetongtarn said according to CNN. The swindlers “probably used AI to fake the voice," she said.
"They first sent a voice clip, saying something like, ‘How are you? I want to work together,’ and so on.
“They sent another voice message asking for a donation, saying, ‘You are the only country in ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] that hasn’t donated yet,' emphasizing it. I was taken aback for a moment and realized something was off.
"Online scams are now a serious threat to not only individuals but also to public confidence in the digital economy, which requires concerted efforts to deal with," she said after the fraudulent phone call.
A charming female scammer tried to pry money out of Anutin Charnvirakul, Thailand's deputy prime minister and interior minister, by claiming he maxed out his credit card and needed to transfer money to maintain its validity.
"She had a nice voice, so I talked with her for about an hour. I guess she didn’t know who I was," Mr. Anutin, who also oversees the police, said on January 16.
When Chinese actor Wang Xing disappeared across the border into Myanmar after arriving in Thailand on Jan. 3, his high-profile case scared fans and Chinese tourists, prompting Thai and Chinese security officials to prioritize the case.
They found Mr. Wang four days later appearing gaunt, with his head freshly shaved, along the Thai-Myanmar border at Mae Sot town.
He reportedly told officials that he voluntarily flew from China to Bangkok to meet a Chinese man who promised Mr. Wang an acting job in Myanmar.
Instead, he was forcibly trafficked to Myanmar and apparently threatened with enslavement in a scam center before somehow gaining his freedom.
"The [Thai] prime minister said that although the Chinese actor who went missing in Myanmar had been found, this incident affected Chinese tourists' confidence," Thai government spokesman Jirayu Huangsub said on January 13.
"Following Wang's rescue...a group of over 400 netizens in a WeChat [app] group in China were also discussing how to rescue their relatives," Global Times reported on January 9.
A Chinese model Yang Zeqi disappeared on Dec. 29 while visiting Tak province in western Thailand where he had been offered a job in a film shoot along the Thai-Myanmar border.
Mr. Yang emerged from Myanmar one month later and returned to China without publicly describing his ordeal.
"The general public must be vigilant, strengthen their own safety precautions, and avoid blindly trusting offers of high-paying jobs overseas to avoid falling into scams and telecom fraud traps," China's Public Security Ministry warned.
Chinese disappearing or being robbed in Thailand are also causing big financial losses for Thais.
Tourism accounts for about 12 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and nearly a fifth of all employment in this Southeast Asian country which is suffering an uneven economy.
Senior Thai police met Chinese Embassy officials in Bangkok in January to organize searches for their citizens missing in Southeast Asia.
The problem of Chinese scammers using Thai territory is also being tackled by Thailand's Anti-Money Laundering Office, the National Cyber Security Agency, the Thai Bankers' Association, mobile telephone operators and others.
Beijing has spent years offering economic, military, and diplomatic support to Bangkok, and the two nations share close multi-generational bonds.
“We will handle this issue with care to minimize impact on tourism," Thailand's Tourism Minister Sorawong Thienthong said.
Thai tourism officials have been tasked with monitoring Mandarin-language social media for news, gossip, and chatter about Chinese tourists in Thailand and their experiences.
"The news has been significant in China," the Association of Thai Travel Agents said.
Hong Kong singer Eason Chan Yik-shun canceled his Feb. 22 Bangkok concert, "in light of recent safety issues concerning Chinese citizens and fans traveling to Thailand," his management said.
Chinese criminals who travel to Thailand have also pulled off big, daring robberies.
For example, a Chinese man and woman flew into Thailand on last year, stole a $28,000 diamond-and-gold bracelet from a Bangkok shop, and flew out of Thailand two-and-a-half hours later.
In August, a Chinese gang armed with guns and knives targeted a wealthy Chinese businessman, tied him up in his luxury Bangkok house, and forced him to transfer $2 million in crypto currency to their account.
A Chinese crime thriller film titled "No More Bets" in 2023 portrayed a Chinese couple trafficked to an unnamed Southeast Asian country's scam center to commit cybercrimes.
The movie frightened so many people in China that it resulted in a real life drop in the number of Chinese tourists to Thailand that year to a low of only 3.5 million visitors.
Thai officials expressed their concern about "No More Bets" to the Chinese Ambassador to Thailand, Han Zhiqiang, emphasizing none of the crimes depicted in the film occurred in Thailand.
Cambodia and Myanmar banned the film amid fears it would damage their countries' reputation among tourists and international investors because many of the illegal scam centers are in Cambodia and Myanmar.
Chinese criminals meanwhile are diversifying and experimenting with artificial intelligence and other high-tech.
"The fraudsters have sped up creating new schemes to cheat people of different ages, engaging in different professions and with different academic backgrounds," China Daily reported.
"They are using emerging technologies, such as blockchain, virtual currency, and artificial intelligence to upgrade their tools," it said, reporting an international crackdown by China's Public Security Ministry.
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Richard S. Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based American foreign correspondent reporting from Asia since 1978, and winner of Columbia University's Foreign Correspondents' Award. Excerpts from his two new <a href="https://asia-correspondent.tumblr.com/">nonfiction</a> books, "Rituals. Killers. Wars. & Sex. -- Tibet, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka & New York" and "Apocalyptic Tribes, Smugglers & Freaks" are available at <a href="https://asia-correspondent.tumblr.com/">https://asia-correspondent.tumblr.com</a>