Is China Really Powerless to Stop the ‘Scamdemic’? | TIME
Pale, gaunt, and with a freshly shaved head, Chinese actor Wang Xing sat flanked by Thai police in the border town of Mae Sot on Jan. 7 to discuss his terrifying ordeal. The 31-year-old had flown to Bangkok for what he thought was a meeting with Thai movie executives. Instead, he was trafficked across the border to wartorn Myanmar’s lawless Myawaddy region, where he was forcibly put to work conducting online scams.
“The environment was very dangerous,” Wang said on a video filmed on his flight home published by Chinese media. “I can’t sleep. I didn’t even have time to pee.”
It’s a story so common these days as to barely warrant a shrug in law enforcement circles. Experts estimate that more than 220,000 trafficking victims from over 100 countries ranging from Ghana and Nigeria to Brazil and the UAE are held in “pig-butchering” scam operations—so named after fattening a hog for slaughter—in Myanmar and Cambodia alone. Many of the trafficking victims are young, tech-savvy graduates from regions where unemployment rates are high.
Read More: Poppies to Pig-Butchering: Inside the Golden Triangle’s Criminal Reboot
Yet Wang’s minor celebrity profile combined with his girlfriend’s heroic efforts raising the alarm on social media has once again thrust Southeast Asia’s scam centers back into the spotlight. Following his ordeal, China’s embassies in Thailand and Myanmar have warned their citizens to beware of recruitment scams, while the state-run China Daily published an opinion piece warning that lawlessness “could undermine the confidence of Chinese tourists in neighboring countries.”
Sure enough, Chinese tour bookings to Thailand have plummeted just in the run up to the usually busy and lucrative Lunar New Year holiday. Hong Kong pop star Eason Chan even canceled a sold-out concert in Bangkok next month given “safety concerns for Chinese citizens and fans around the world traveling to Thailand,” according to organizer SFEG. Chinese comedian Zhao Benshan also postponed a gig in Bangkok. (During his public statement, Wang was tellingly urged by Thai police to insist he felt Thailand was safe.)
But apart from negative repercussions for Thailand’s crucial tourism sector,