The Economist has an excellent and heartbreaking podcast about this scam industry that they estimate at $500bn annually, but it's available to subscribers only I believe.
Crypto use cases:
1. Financing North Korea's nuclear missile program
Another recommendation for a related podcast, an episode of "The Rest is Classified" [0] talking about North Korea's attempt to steal $1B from the central bank of Bangladesh.
It's much better at scamming and funding weapons programs than protest or disobedience because crypto transactions are non reversable but tend to leave a lot of tracks behind. If persons involved are anywhere that they can be arrested or intimidated they will be.
I swear, have y'all bought drugs? You don't need crypto to do it, dealers take Venmo.
Hell, the lady I get very much not legal shrooms from has a Shopify site. I get a receipt in my email, a tracking number, and she asks to rate her shop 5 stars.
Saying that this is a use-case for crypto implies a level of drug enforcement that simply doesn't exist.
Well yeah, vegetarians only accept food without meat. You've already limited yourself to a subset of dealers who are privacy and tech nerds, of course they only take crypto.
You can use crypto to buy drugs on the "dark web" but like all crypto things it's not a system for the masses. I had to explain E2EE one of my friends who thought Snapchat was better than iMessage for buying drugs because it "deletes" the message. There's no universe she's gonna figure out crypto.
> the "dark web" is where many of the dealers get the drugs from
Source? “Dark web” is sort of a perfectly-useless mix of trust and trust-less for a high-volume actor. You don’t know who’s on the other side, definitively. But they at least know a mailing address you can get to.
I don't really have a source for this: I've never used the "dark web" myself. But my understanding from people who have is that it's that it's possible to buy in large quantities, which seemed to me like it would only be useful for dealers.
Your point about the mailing address is a good one though. I had not thought about that.
Most dealers get their drugs from the cartel of course, but ime (i like to talk with my drug dealers) dark web markets are the second biggest source. Stuff like mdma, lsd seems to be almost exclusively sourced on the dark web.
I know someone who buys their drugs rarely but in large quantities in this way. They are not a dealer but essentially use quite a bit and ask friends what they want and then order a couple thousand euros worth of stuff to get the volume discount and to reduce the amount of packages.
No, they don’t. Virtually all drug sales are conducted in person or by mail with cash or Venmo/Cashapp, at least for weed, cocaine, fentanyl, meth; which covers 99% of drug transactions.
I’ve never met anyone who has bought drugs on the dark web and I know more drug dealers than most people.
Weed finds it way to the people who need it from the people that grow it through a network of middlemen/brokers. Cocaine, meth, and fentanyl wholesaling is pretty much cartel dominated.
Unsure about other drugs, I know online is a common way that obtain LSD (and other psychedelics like 5-MeO-DMT, 2CB) but I’ve always bought it in person.
And shopify doesn't close her account for this? I don''t oppose the lady doing it and thing most drug laws are self-serving corruption machines of the worst kind, but i'm surprised that a regulation-fearful, self-serving corporate entity like shopify would just let her site stay up.
Yeah for the most part nobody is prosecuting. Feds are going after bigger fish. Local authorities in the US are looking elsewhere too.
It gets awkward if someone dies, but even then they're just tracing stuff to go after the person that dealt the drugs, who is in a quagmire of ratting out a cartel (instant game over) or taking the L and going to jail.
> An airlift carrying more than 1,000 Chinese nationals who had worked at online scam centers in eastern Myanmar began Thursday.. Thailand, China and Myanmar have coordinated efforts over the past month to shut down the scam centers that bilked victims around the world out of billions of dollars through false romantic ploys, bogus investment pitches and illegal gambling schemes. Thai officials said recently that as many as 10,000 people may be repatriated from Myanmar.. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on a visit to Beijing earlier this month told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that Thailand would crack down on the scam networks. Just ahead of her visit, Thailand cut off electricity, internet and gas supplies to several areas in Myanmar.. An earlier crackdown on scam centers in Myanmar happened in late 2023.. Ethnic guerrilla groups with close ties to Beijing shut down many operations
On January 3, 2025, Wang Xing (stage name "Xingxing"), a Chinese actor, was deceived into a scam center in Myanmar by a fraud group under the pretext of "going to Thailand for filming work". After Wang Xing lost contact, his girlfriend Jiajia posted a message for help through social media and actively contacted relevant authorities. This incident attracted the attention of the Chinese film industry. Many actors posted about this matter, prompting the Chinese Embassy in Thailand, the Chinese Consulate General in Chiang Mai and the Thai police to intervene in the investigation and search and rescue.
From the AP link above, on Myanmar organized crime advertising Thailand as work location:
> Thailand wants to cooperate with China since reports about scam workers being trafficked through Thailand have circulated widely on Chinese social media. The Thai government and others fear it will discourage the lucrative market of inbound Chinese tourists.
What is tragic is that these are labor camps that double as residential dorms for indentured servants. Cutting off gas must make it difficult to cook, even if the intent is to cut another source of power for the machines.
What they do to those foreigners thinking they are going for a great job in thailand, while in reality being smuggled into myanmar against their will, is surreal
These illegal scam prisons are run by Chinese nationals and almost certainly backed by CCP. It's very cute for the Chinese government to pretend they don't have a direct hand in this scourge.
That doesn’t make any sense. The Chinese are also the main victim of these scam factories. That’s why scammers kidnap Chinese to work there, because they speak the language and are more convincing to victims. Also, customs will specifically warn Chinese who are flying to those areas about these fake “job offers”. And the article mentions that Thailand is cracking down before their president meets with the Chinese, which doesn’t make any sense if the CCP is backing them.
In northern Thailand, airports have big signs at arrivals saying "Are you travelling to a new job? Have you been offered better pay than you could get at home? STOP HERE and talk to a police officer. Many before you have been tricked and kidnapped".
According to the Economist series linked above, the industry has switched from scamming the chinese, to bigger targets in west. Taken a proven business model to new markets, so to speak. It was implied that CCP had a firm guiding hand helping this pivot.
These illegal scams are based in Shwe Koko, which is under the control of the BGF and they are not influenced by the CCP. The scam center is operated by a 14K triad leader who fled to Portugal in 1997 to escape China’s anti-triad crackdown. He is likely holding either Macau or Portuguese citizenship.
The 14K triad was originally founded by former Kuomintang generals as an anti-communist action group. In the past, they were heavily involved in transporting and distributing drugs from the Golden Triangle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14K_(triad)
I guess all the party members who "fled" to europe and canada while still in control and running their business are also to be seen as persecuted evildoers instead of what the ccp really is, a landed gentry that colonized its own people ?
Same as putin? Mafia state has a proxy to earn money and inflict social disruption on the west? Every succesfull scam is a your family should "vote for anti globalism extremists" for the rest of life flyer. To fail to protect against this kills democracy and rule of law.
The amount of copium when it comes to China vs US is illogical. If you’ve ever done business in China, you know there are honest folk and there are officials who do backroom deals that flaunt or bend the law, particularly abroad. If there’s money to be had, it will be made. If there’s points to be scored on the latest edict, they will be scored. If it needs to be done, but the public can’t handle hearing about it for their own good, it shall be so.
While you may well be correct in other cases, my local intuitions led me to wikipedia's [0] references to a NYT article, which claims that the scam centers in the town they are cutting power, etc., to primarily target Chinese victims. Since the abductees and other staff manning these call centers are mostly Chinese, it makes sense their victims are too. China is rich enough that they don't need to go to the extra hassle to find western-speakers. In fact, through both local news and second-hand accounts, I know there are even Thais who get tricked and abducted to scam Thais! Scammers are just equal opportunity about their cons: even the poorest bumpkin with a positive smartphone balance is welcome to ride on their roller-coster of desire and loss.
They primarily target Chinese, actually. That’s why they kidnap Chinese to work there, because they speak the language and are more convincing to victims.
> about 200 Chinese citizens “suspected of involvement in fraud” were flown to an airport in the city of Nanjing, China’s official Xinhua news agency said.
It's complicated, the CCP is big, like China is. You simplify it into a monolithic structure, but's it's very much not one, there are factions, geographical divisions, conflicting interests, etc.
You're probably right some people inside the CCP protect those scam bosses, I would not bet an arm that Xi is encouraging it.
I wonder if things deteriorate into a failed state China will intervene. They did that in the 1970s with Cambodia.
But who knows America and India will probably go ape shit.
Deteriorate? Myanmar has been a failed state for 60 years. To give you an idea of what I mean, their current and previous dictators consult witch doctors for their decisions, and the largest city of 5 million doesn’t have continuous electricity.
One of the many ongoing wars in Myanmar, The Karen conflict, is one of the longest-running armed conflicts in the world. Myanmar has been a total mess since end of WWII.
I am from Myanmar. There were ethnic wars but in past 10 years it was developing after military dictatorship ended.We cannot be said failed state on those days. Then It was our golden age until Crazy junta head Min Aung Hlaing coup and look our president and Nobel laureate leader as hostages
.
Now the people armed up , united alongside ethnic armed forces and taking back.
BGF is aligned to military juntas and Chinese scam gangs.
Myanmar's dictators are far less educated than Trump, and also happen to be extremely superstitious. They also have basically absolute power and can kill or imprison anyone they want without any sort of reason or trial.
Imagine if The Trump Organization (the holding company) had its own army, the generals owned shares in the army's business, and there was no civil society outside of the army. That is Myanmar's situation. I can't understate how tyrannical and corrupt it is.
Do policy people see any light at the end of the tunnel for Myanmar? I feel like we just need to give intelligence + a couple billion in weapons to a Burmese version of Dostum. Make it a condition of receiving aid that scammers are ruthlessly cracked down on/sent back to China. Form a coalition with other EAOs that matter, sort of like the Northern Alliance, and take over Tatmadaw controlled cities one by one. Then get some highly decentralized federalism in place (draw the rest of the owl).
> Do policy people see any light at the end of the tunnel for Myanmar
Depends on where those policy people are from.
I'm American but my extended family is in the Dogra Regiment (IYKYK - and also why I haven't been nominated as an [or is it "a", me fail Eng.i.mean.phonetics after a couple Blantons] SES for US-India relations over the past 15ish years), so I have absolutely no hope. Myanmar has become yet another battlefield for China and India to flex, and it's millions of innocent civilians who face the brunt of this little d** syndrome.
My friends who haven't been purged by DOGE or are doing the purging on behalf of DOGE don't know these intricacies.
And this pisses me off. There are millions of innocent civilians facing rape, human trafficking, murder, and ethnic cleansing because a couple limp d**s in Naypawday, Kunming, Imphal, and Bangkok couldn't care enough to negotiate a true path to peace.
> I feel like we just need to give intelligence + a couple billion in weapons to a Burmese version of Dostum
There are like 50 Dostums in Myanmar. If you ever followed a "true" history of the Afghan Civil War, you'd see the same situation arise in the 1990s. Both Pakistan and India would fund their favorite warlords with weapons and rupees (my mom went to college with Hamid Karzai), and give their families asylum (if you want Ahmad Shah Massoud's [0] family's address in Delhi-3 I gotchu).
China, Thailand, and India are doing the same thing in Myanmar (and did the same thing 30 years ago).
> Then get some highly decentralized federalism in place (draw the rest of the owl).
And then Cls like my Phuphar in the Dogras would bribe (or put a bullet in) them to make sure they don't flip to the Chinese, and it becomes Libya or Congo 2.0 because the equivalent in China or Thailand is 100% doing the same.
> Form a coalition with other EAOs that matter, sort of like the Northern Alliance, and take over Tatmadaw controlled cities one by one.
Some EAOs are funded by China. Others by India. And others by Thailand. For all intents and purposes, none of these countries view Myanmar as a "real" country, and are working on splitting it up amongst the EAOs they are funding (or honeytrapped).
I see what you mean. I feel like it's a collective action problem. If Myanmar had its security situation together, the incentive to meddle would be much lower. No one funds rebel groups just for the sake of it, except maybe Gaddafi. But there are way too many parties to way too many tables, so chaos just continues because reaching a deal never seems possible.
I read a book about Dostum and I vaguely remember they actually had multiple candidates in mind originally. There was Rabbani, Dostum and I think some others, but they chose Dostum cause he had the least baggage and ties to Iran. Problem is in Myanmar might not be anyone with real power who is even defensible. You don't hear too many bad things about say the TNLA, but that might just be a function of them not being important enough to make headlines in English news. I get the impression the KNLA is the most legitimate EAO in the eyes of Western governments yet their leaders are on tape negotiating heroin deals and brokering uranium [1], so maybe my hope for a unifier to come out of these armed groups is a bit unrealistic.
We need to get ready d of Junta and we are in the process so far. Many of Myanmar PDF, joined with The Arakan army and they are in progress to capture key supply lines . Currently junta at heavy losses and both southern and eastern areas are in control of PDF and Arakan army .
We are in progress to restore democracy but a lot of us are suffering. No western power help us. We are mostly on our own.
And narrative of EOA being funded by China, Thailand, India is false. EOA had nad alliance and bargain with those nation to, they have to buy the weapons and do the trades but none of them funded and controlled by those bigger powers (
MNDAA tho, had unfortunately had to bow down to china after threat of elimination if they don't broker peace deal with Myanmar military after their leader got captured by CCP during call for a meeting for peace talk)
It you want to know more details please ask a local. Many western media rarely have an ideal of what's going on.
> And narrative of EOA being funded by China, Thailand, India is false. EOA had nad alliance and bargain with those nation to, they have to buy the weapons and do the trades but none of them funded and controlled by those bigger powers
I agree to a certain extent. The EOAs were created by individual Myanmarese who faced the brunt of the regime (a major reason as you mentioned behind the PDF movement), but at least in Chin, Saigang, and Kachin the EOAs do have to collaborate closely with India or China (Intel, weapons, medical care) because they have significant investments which changes the calculus, and worst case justify limited cross-border interventions (but both Chinese and Indian have done so a number of times)
> We are in progress to restore democracy but a lot of us are suffering. No western power help us. We are mostly on our own
Absolutely. I think what the PDFs are doing is extremely difficult and admirable, but a lot of the EOAs are not necessarily aligned with the PDF movement and in a lot of cases collaborated with the Junta.
Don't get fooled - these are _Chinese_ scam centers in Myanmar. Before they were scam centers it was a casino complex for Chinese until Covid blocked all the customers. There are also versions of this in Laos and Cambodia that nobody really talks about yet.
> I wonder if things deteriorate into a failed state
Myanmar is basically a Southeast Asian version of Congo.
All the neighboring countries (China, India, Thailand) have already de facto intervened by maintaining relations with and arming regional warlords, and "their" guys in the Tatmadaw.
For example,
- China and the MDNAA [0] and the Wa State [1], and their "Goma" is Muse and Mongla
- India and the ethnic Chin opposition [2][3] and the Arakan Army [4] (the guys who did the Rohingya Genocide - they flipped from China to India in 23-24), and their "Goma" is Tamu and Sittwe.
- Thailand's Military Government's continued support of the Myanmar Tatmadaw [5], and their "Goma" is Myawaddy, Payathonzhu, Shwekoko (the city mentioned above), and Mawdaung.
China, India, and Thailand are all enabling the worst actors in Myanmar's civil war, and it's the civilians that lose.
> They did that in the 1970s with Cambodia
Which sparked a regional war with Vietnam in 1979, and multiple coups and counter-coups by Chinese and Vietnamese backed factions in Cambodia and Laos.
If Cambodia and Laos was chaotic, Myanmar will be 1,000 times worse, because several ethnic groups in Myanmar have large (1mil+) populations in both China and India, so the risk of regional contagion is massive, and has already started in Manipur [6].
Well in all fairness to China/India, they might prefer to work with a legitimate government, but the legitimate government of Myanmar (when it existed) has always been completely dysfunctional. It also has never really exercised any control of the borderlands, which are where rebel groups like those in Manipur often congregate. Even prior to the development of the scam industry, out of work Chinese in provinces like Yunnan would often seek opportunity in the more well run EAO quasi-states. There are well-maintained paved roads in Pangkham, which can't be said for much of the country.
> the legitimate government of Myanmar (when it existed) has always been completely dysfunctiona
No argument there. Those guys are horrible. They make Mao, Phibunsongkhram, and Indira Gandhi look like saints.
> It also has never really exercised any control of the borderlands, which are where rebel groups like those in Manipur often congregate
No argument there, despite half my family being veterans of the Dogra Regiment (IYKYK)
> Even prior to the development of the scam industry, out of work Chinese in provinces like Yunnan would often seek opportunity in the more well run EAO quasi-states
Because there was an "anti-corruption crackdown" that in Yunnan lead to criminal gangs (especially in the prostitution and drug space) being kicked out in 2012-15 to Myanmar. In reality, a lot of those guys didn't pay the right people off, so they left for ASEAN.
> There are well-maintained paved roads in Pangkham, which can't be said for much of the country.
100% True. And I don't blame local councils for supporting Chinese investment there.
But it's something even a local village councils could organize if the central government existed.
This is why China, Thailand, and India exert power in the hinterlands of Myanmar.
Myanmar has the right mix of human capital and low cost, but a horrible government meant it's outside countries using their worse people to access that capital (gangs)
The one that did genocide is Junta, not Arakan army. junta made disinformation to western media to cover up their asses and put the blame to Arakan army. Arakan army is main force that is fighting junta.
The Myanmar junta is already a failed state and a client state of China, they're highly dependent on them. If the people running things in Beijing weren't OK with that junta, it wouldn't be in power right now.
That overstates the Soviet aspect and severely understates the Vietnamese aspect.
For Vietnam, Cambodia is their near abroad. Saigon is barely 20 miles away from Cambodia, and the Mekong is the lifeblood of Southern Vietnam, and Cambodian factions (the same ones the Chinese backed in the 1970s) had supported anti-Vietnamese insurgencies in Gia Lai.
Cambodia and Laos became a buffer state for China+Thailand and Vietnam the same way Myanmar has become one for China, Thailand, and India.
I'd bet any money that while China might not go in overtly, they'd be the main silent-backers of Thai forces that could go in overtly with fewer objections from abroad. (Or, maybe it'd be more accurate to say that, the Thais wouldn't care as much about the objections from abroad as the Chinese would?)
It could even be that everyone is misjudging the asians entirely? And it's bad enough that at even the slightest provocation from the warlords, we'll see Thai and Chinese troops flood in. Consequences be damned. This would be the worst outcome for the rest of the world, but probably the best outcome for the people currently being terrorized and held hostage by these thugs. I just hope it doesn't get to that point.
> Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on a visit to Beijing earlier this month told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that Thailand would crack down on the scam networks. Just ahead of her visit, Thailand cut off electricity, internet and gas supplies to several areas in Myanmar.. Thailand wants to cooperate with China since reports about scam workers being trafficked through Thailand have circulated widely on Chinese social media. The Thai government and others fear it will discourage the lucrative market of inbound Chinese tourists.
It still is a unified force but crippling house of cards now.
Thy are losing and massacring civilization In retaliation on those liberated areas using 500lb bombs. Lost of civilians deaths on those areas there's aren't any conflicts.
But many of them are in people side and spying for revolution forces.
A lot of this came up in a meetup I participated in a couple years ago at HKS.
But at a high level, you'll see Chinese weapon sales [0] happen at the same time as Indian weapon sales [1] to the Tatmadaw, despite both China and India directly competing with each other.
Sadly, Myanmar was always a basket case because the British ignored it when it was British India and later British Burma, so outside the Bamar core, the state never truly existed on the ground.
And after the 2020 China-India standoff, Myanmar became even more of a conflict zone because at it's shortest it's a 40 mile buffer zone between Assam and Yunnan.
Yes but this is a strong signal, locals of that area no longer have electricity. A few actions like this and scammers become undesirable unless they share more and more of their profits which at some point become untenable.
Good luck to the people being held prisoner in these hubs. Hopefully they can escape the abuse and violence, and not just be trafficked to another hub.
it's a grim situation... i hope there are resources available to help those who manage to escape, and that more is done to prevent these hubs from operating in the first place.
Who would have guessed - that this is what the singularity boiled down to- AI scaming and hacking humans - which thus regresses into tribal factions. What a letdown!
Once DOGE eliminates the US government, we will all be either vassals of megacorporations, living in corp arcologies, or homeless with our punk band in burnt-out shipping containers.
Old news, they turned on diesel generators and Starlink and shifted around.
They obviously would have taken a hit and Thailand has already shut down cell towers on the Cambodia border near Poi Pet where they moved some operations.
They should have been reading HN and how solar is cheaper than anything else, silly criminals doing real world stuff.
Tbh I feel like the people didn't care much about it because the people who got kidnapped there were mostly attracted by job offers that were known to be shady (quick money), so there wasn't much discussion around this. The actor getting kidnapped is different: People suddenly found that you can be kidnapped even when the offer seems legit and only staying in Thailand. This forced the government (both China and Thailand) to take action to address the concerns.
But I think this will come back again. This kidnapping thing is not new, and it caught media attention a few years ago as well, they just go silent for a period of time and continue their operation later.
it's very odd that China doesn't really care about an estimated 100K of its citizens getting trafficked in this manner.
It's such an open secret that there was a $500MM box office movie about it last year, and media censorship is so heavy in China that I wonder what admitting this even means.
They backed a group of militias to invade areas where this was happening [0]. They also pressured family members of tens of thousands Chinese in northern Myanmar to return [1]. China literally waltzed into Kokang and put the top scam leaders on a plane.
The real question is why there hasn't been any remotely comparable response from the US. Every EAO that matters is aligned with China and thus doesn't care when Americans are scammed. The US should make them care.
If it were just scamming it would be one thing but for China it's a much bigger deal because it also involves human trafficking of their citizens. While Americans are being scammed, none of them are getting kidnapped and getting essentially enslaved at these scam farms.
Thanks for the links though; I was unaware the PLA was directly involved with the latest offenses.
What do you expect from a government where the President, the First Lady and the unofficial vice president are all paddling meme coins? They really, really, really don't care about any of this.
Similar thing happens in Ukraine when Russia bombs electric stations in certain cities, all of a sudden amount of scam calls to Russia drop to nearly 0.
The Economist has an excellent and heartbreaking podcast about this scam industry that they estimate at $500bn annually, but it's available to subscribers only I believe.
Crypto use cases:
1. Financing North Korea's nuclear missile program
2. Harrowing scams
Is it this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUg-cLVhv-4
Yes:
https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/scam-inc
Another recommendation for a related podcast, an episode of "The Rest is Classified" [0] talking about North Korea's attempt to steal $1B from the central bank of Bangladesh.
[0] https://podfollow.com/1780384916/episode/f35cdceabf691d505eb...
Number Go Up book also has couple of chapters on those and how they are tied into the whole crypto business[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_Go_Up
> Financing North Korea's nuclear missile program
...hail hydra
3 is "doing anything the government doesn't like", which includes, for example, buying drugs, or funding protests against mass murder.
It's much better at scamming and funding weapons programs than protest or disobedience because crypto transactions are non reversable but tend to leave a lot of tracks behind. If persons involved are anywhere that they can be arrested or intimidated they will be.
A permanent immutable ledger can be a pretty big negative when commiting crimes within your own country, such as purchasing drugs.
XMR helps immensely with that.
I swear, have y'all bought drugs? You don't need crypto to do it, dealers take Venmo.
Hell, the lady I get very much not legal shrooms from has a Shopify site. I get a receipt in my email, a tracking number, and she asks to rate her shop 5 stars.
Saying that this is a use-case for crypto implies a level of drug enforcement that simply doesn't exist.
Dark web vendors do not take any form of payment other than cryptocurrency.
You don't need dark web vendors. Normal web has plenty.
Just send me a package. I want nothing to do with IRL drug-dealers.
The alternative is not necessarily better: scammers.
I'd rather get scammed than stabbed.
The guy with the shop and 51 flavours of weed a few blocks away takes amex.
Aren't they taking a pretty big risk?
Well yeah, vegetarians only accept food without meat. You've already limited yourself to a subset of dealers who are privacy and tech nerds, of course they only take crypto.
You can use crypto to buy drugs on the "dark web" but like all crypto things it's not a system for the masses. I had to explain E2EE one of my friends who thought Snapchat was better than iMessage for buying drugs because it "deletes" the message. There's no universe she's gonna figure out crypto.
I think the "dark web" is where many of the dealers get the drugs from. A "wholesale" market where your local dealer is the "retailer" if you like.
> the "dark web" is where many of the dealers get the drugs from
Source? “Dark web” is sort of a perfectly-useless mix of trust and trust-less for a high-volume actor. You don’t know who’s on the other side, definitively. But they at least know a mailing address you can get to.
I don't really have a source for this: I've never used the "dark web" myself. But my understanding from people who have is that it's that it's possible to buy in large quantities, which seemed to me like it would only be useful for dealers.
Your point about the mailing address is a good one though. I had not thought about that.
Most dealers get their drugs from the cartel of course, but ime (i like to talk with my drug dealers) dark web markets are the second biggest source. Stuff like mdma, lsd seems to be almost exclusively sourced on the dark web.
>this
I know someone who buys their drugs rarely but in large quantities in this way. They are not a dealer but essentially use quite a bit and ask friends what they want and then order a couple thousand euros worth of stuff to get the volume discount and to reduce the amount of packages.
No, they don’t. Virtually all drug sales are conducted in person or by mail with cash or Venmo/Cashapp, at least for weed, cocaine, fentanyl, meth; which covers 99% of drug transactions.
I’ve never met anyone who has bought drugs on the dark web and I know more drug dealers than most people.
Weed finds it way to the people who need it from the people that grow it through a network of middlemen/brokers. Cocaine, meth, and fentanyl wholesaling is pretty much cartel dominated.
Unsure about other drugs, I know online is a common way that obtain LSD (and other psychedelics like 5-MeO-DMT, 2CB) but I’ve always bought it in person.
And shopify doesn't close her account for this? I don''t oppose the lady doing it and thing most drug laws are self-serving corruption machines of the worst kind, but i'm surprised that a regulation-fearful, self-serving corporate entity like shopify would just let her site stay up.
Honestly curious.
That's insane. The people you buy drugs from are dummies.
Yeah for the most part nobody is prosecuting. Feds are going after bigger fish. Local authorities in the US are looking elsewhere too.
It gets awkward if someone dies, but even then they're just tracing stuff to go after the person that dealt the drugs, who is in a quagmire of ratting out a cartel (instant game over) or taking the L and going to jail.
Could all change at any moment of course.
Yes, it's true that crime is a third major category of use cases.
That happened 17 days ago (24 points, 5 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42962545
Feb 20, https://apnews.com/article/myanmar-online-scam-centers-myawa...
> An airlift carrying more than 1,000 Chinese nationals who had worked at online scam centers in eastern Myanmar began Thursday.. Thailand, China and Myanmar have coordinated efforts over the past month to shut down the scam centers that bilked victims around the world out of billions of dollars through false romantic ploys, bogus investment pitches and illegal gambling schemes. Thai officials said recently that as many as 10,000 people may be repatriated from Myanmar.. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on a visit to Beijing earlier this month told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that Thailand would crack down on the scam networks. Just ahead of her visit, Thailand cut off electricity, internet and gas supplies to several areas in Myanmar.. An earlier crackdown on scam centers in Myanmar happened in late 2023.. Ethnic guerrilla groups with close ties to Beijing shut down many operations
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43149372
> This all happened because they kidnapped a Chinese actor, maybe fake casting call ads are not the wisest idea - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Wang_Xing
From the AP link above, on Myanmar organized crime advertising Thailand as work location:> Thailand wants to cooperate with China since reports about scam workers being trafficked through Thailand have circulated widely on Chinese social media. The Thai government and others fear it will discourage the lucrative market of inbound Chinese tourists.
What is tragic is that these are labor camps that double as residential dorms for indentured servants. Cutting off gas must make it difficult to cook, even if the intent is to cut another source of power for the machines.
What they do to those foreigners thinking they are going for a great job in thailand, while in reality being smuggled into myanmar against their will, is surreal
These illegal scam prisons are run by Chinese nationals and almost certainly backed by CCP. It's very cute for the Chinese government to pretend they don't have a direct hand in this scourge.
That doesn’t make any sense. The Chinese are also the main victim of these scam factories. That’s why scammers kidnap Chinese to work there, because they speak the language and are more convincing to victims. Also, customs will specifically warn Chinese who are flying to those areas about these fake “job offers”. And the article mentions that Thailand is cracking down before their president meets with the Chinese, which doesn’t make any sense if the CCP is backing them.
In northern Thailand, airports have big signs at arrivals saying "Are you travelling to a new job? Have you been offered better pay than you could get at home? STOP HERE and talk to a police officer. Many before you have been tricked and kidnapped".
According to the Economist series linked above, the industry has switched from scamming the chinese, to bigger targets in west. Taken a proven business model to new markets, so to speak. It was implied that CCP had a firm guiding hand helping this pivot.
i'm a little curious
is it true that you can only get information from the Economist or NYT or CNN or BBC or wikipedia?
have anyone of you tried to get information from other sources? like some non-english articles and posts? or from some chinese who live in china?
These illegal scams are based in Shwe Koko, which is under the control of the BGF and they are not influenced by the CCP. The scam center is operated by a 14K triad leader who fled to Portugal in 1997 to escape China’s anti-triad crackdown. He is likely holding either Macau or Portuguese citizenship.
The 14K triad was originally founded by former Kuomintang generals as an anti-communist action group. In the past, they were heavily involved in transporting and distributing drugs from the Golden Triangle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14K_(triad)
I guess all the party members who "fled" to europe and canada while still in control and running their business are also to be seen as persecuted evildoers instead of what the ccp really is, a landed gentry that colonized its own people ?
Some of these criminals suddenly claim to be CCP spies or victims of political or religious persecution to avoid extradition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Zhijiang
What motivation would the CCP have to back this?
Same as putin? Mafia state has a proxy to earn money and inflict social disruption on the west? Every succesfull scam is a your family should "vote for anti globalism extremists" for the rest of life flyer. To fail to protect against this kills democracy and rule of law.
Other than the massive profit?
CCP has plenty of money. Theyre not north korea. That would be like the US government running scam centers. Juice not worth the squeeze.
How would it compare to the persistent belief that the CIA uses the illegal drug trade for funding?
CIA has to get funds beyond what is approved by US govt to fund unapproved missions. China doesn't have these problems.
The amount of copium when it comes to China vs US is illogical. If you’ve ever done business in China, you know there are honest folk and there are officials who do backroom deals that flaunt or bend the law, particularly abroad. If there’s money to be had, it will be made. If there’s points to be scored on the latest edict, they will be scored. If it needs to be done, but the public can’t handle hearing about it for their own good, it shall be so.
The same is true of US officials. I still dont think any of them are running scam centers.
And the fact that these scam centers primarily target rich western countries that are at political odds with the CCP?
While you may well be correct in other cases, my local intuitions led me to wikipedia's [0] references to a NYT article, which claims that the scam centers in the town they are cutting power, etc., to primarily target Chinese victims. Since the abductees and other staff manning these call centers are mostly Chinese, it makes sense their victims are too. China is rich enough that they don't need to go to the extra hassle to find western-speakers. In fact, through both local news and second-hand accounts, I know there are even Thais who get tricked and abducted to scam Thais! Scammers are just equal opportunity about their cons: even the poorest bumpkin with a positive smartphone balance is welcome to ride on their roller-coster of desire and loss.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myawaddy?wprov=sfti1#Crime
ed: deduplicate to; regret the last 28 minutes of my life.
They primarily target Chinese, actually. That’s why they kidnap Chinese to work there, because they speak the language and are more convincing to victims.
From the AP article:
> about 200 Chinese citizens “suspected of involvement in fraud” were flown to an airport in the city of Nanjing, China’s official Xinhua news agency said.
Exactly what I'm talking about. CCP are now pretending they didn't know / fund these people from the beginning.
It's complicated, the CCP is big, like China is. You simplify it into a monolithic structure, but's it's very much not one, there are factions, geographical divisions, conflicting interests, etc.
You're probably right some people inside the CCP protect those scam bosses, I would not bet an arm that Xi is encouraging it.
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Come on, that's not necessary.
Icarus always flies too close to the sun.
I wonder if things deteriorate into a failed state China will intervene. They did that in the 1970s with Cambodia. But who knows America and India will probably go ape shit.
Deteriorate? Myanmar has been a failed state for 60 years. To give you an idea of what I mean, their current and previous dictators consult witch doctors for their decisions, and the largest city of 5 million doesn’t have continuous electricity. One of the many ongoing wars in Myanmar, The Karen conflict, is one of the longest-running armed conflicts in the world. Myanmar has been a total mess since end of WWII.
I am from Myanmar. There were ethnic wars but in past 10 years it was developing after military dictatorship ended.We cannot be said failed state on those days. Then It was our golden age until Crazy junta head Min Aung Hlaing coup and look our president and Nobel laureate leader as hostages .
Now the people armed up , united alongside ethnic armed forces and taking back.
BGF is aligned to military juntas and Chinese scam gangs.
still better than appointing a non national witch doctor as his number two.
Myanmar's dictators are far less educated than Trump, and also happen to be extremely superstitious. They also have basically absolute power and can kill or imprison anyone they want without any sort of reason or trial.
Imagine if The Trump Organization (the holding company) had its own army, the generals owned shares in the army's business, and there was no civil society outside of the army. That is Myanmar's situation. I can't understate how tyrannical and corrupt it is.
Meh, witch doctors or pastors, pick your poison.
Don't worry.
Plenty of the rebel groups consult with Southern Baptist pastors - especially in Chin State and Saigang.
Do policy people see any light at the end of the tunnel for Myanmar? I feel like we just need to give intelligence + a couple billion in weapons to a Burmese version of Dostum. Make it a condition of receiving aid that scammers are ruthlessly cracked down on/sent back to China. Form a coalition with other EAOs that matter, sort of like the Northern Alliance, and take over Tatmadaw controlled cities one by one. Then get some highly decentralized federalism in place (draw the rest of the owl).
> Do policy people see any light at the end of the tunnel for Myanmar
Depends on where those policy people are from.
I'm American but my extended family is in the Dogra Regiment (IYKYK - and also why I haven't been nominated as an [or is it "a", me fail Eng.i.mean.phonetics after a couple Blantons] SES for US-India relations over the past 15ish years), so I have absolutely no hope. Myanmar has become yet another battlefield for China and India to flex, and it's millions of innocent civilians who face the brunt of this little d** syndrome.
My friends who haven't been purged by DOGE or are doing the purging on behalf of DOGE don't know these intricacies.
And this pisses me off. There are millions of innocent civilians facing rape, human trafficking, murder, and ethnic cleansing because a couple limp d**s in Naypawday, Kunming, Imphal, and Bangkok couldn't care enough to negotiate a true path to peace.
> I feel like we just need to give intelligence + a couple billion in weapons to a Burmese version of Dostum
There are like 50 Dostums in Myanmar. If you ever followed a "true" history of the Afghan Civil War, you'd see the same situation arise in the 1990s. Both Pakistan and India would fund their favorite warlords with weapons and rupees (my mom went to college with Hamid Karzai), and give their families asylum (if you want Ahmad Shah Massoud's [0] family's address in Delhi-3 I gotchu).
China, Thailand, and India are doing the same thing in Myanmar (and did the same thing 30 years ago).
> Then get some highly decentralized federalism in place (draw the rest of the owl).
And then Cls like my Phuphar in the Dogras would bribe (or put a bullet in) them to make sure they don't flip to the Chinese, and it becomes Libya or Congo 2.0 because the equivalent in China or Thailand is 100% doing the same.
> Form a coalition with other EAOs that matter, sort of like the Northern Alliance, and take over Tatmadaw controlled cities one by one.
Some EAOs are funded by China. Others by India. And others by Thailand. For all intents and purposes, none of these countries view Myanmar as a "real" country, and are working on splitting it up amongst the EAOs they are funding (or honeytrapped).
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Massoud
I see what you mean. I feel like it's a collective action problem. If Myanmar had its security situation together, the incentive to meddle would be much lower. No one funds rebel groups just for the sake of it, except maybe Gaddafi. But there are way too many parties to way too many tables, so chaos just continues because reaching a deal never seems possible.
I read a book about Dostum and I vaguely remember they actually had multiple candidates in mind originally. There was Rabbani, Dostum and I think some others, but they chose Dostum cause he had the least baggage and ties to Iran. Problem is in Myanmar might not be anyone with real power who is even defensible. You don't hear too many bad things about say the TNLA, but that might just be a function of them not being important enough to make headlines in English news. I get the impression the KNLA is the most legitimate EAO in the eyes of Western governments yet their leaders are on tape negotiating heroin deals and brokering uranium [1], so maybe my hope for a unifier to come out of these armed groups is a bit unrealistic.
[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.57...
We need to get ready d of Junta and we are in the process so far. Many of Myanmar PDF, joined with The Arakan army and they are in progress to capture key supply lines . Currently junta at heavy losses and both southern and eastern areas are in control of PDF and Arakan army .
We are in progress to restore democracy but a lot of us are suffering. No western power help us. We are mostly on our own.
And narrative of EOA being funded by China, Thailand, India is false. EOA had nad alliance and bargain with those nation to, they have to buy the weapons and do the trades but none of them funded and controlled by those bigger powers ( MNDAA tho, had unfortunately had to bow down to china after threat of elimination if they don't broker peace deal with Myanmar military after their leader got captured by CCP during call for a meeting for peace talk)
It you want to know more details please ask a local. Many western media rarely have an ideal of what's going on.
> And narrative of EOA being funded by China, Thailand, India is false. EOA had nad alliance and bargain with those nation to, they have to buy the weapons and do the trades but none of them funded and controlled by those bigger powers
I agree to a certain extent. The EOAs were created by individual Myanmarese who faced the brunt of the regime (a major reason as you mentioned behind the PDF movement), but at least in Chin, Saigang, and Kachin the EOAs do have to collaborate closely with India or China (Intel, weapons, medical care) because they have significant investments which changes the calculus, and worst case justify limited cross-border interventions (but both Chinese and Indian have done so a number of times)
> We are in progress to restore democracy but a lot of us are suffering. No western power help us. We are mostly on our own
Absolutely. I think what the PDFs are doing is extremely difficult and admirable, but a lot of the EOAs are not necessarily aligned with the PDF movement and in a lot of cases collaborated with the Junta.
Don't get fooled - these are _Chinese_ scam centers in Myanmar. Before they were scam centers it was a casino complex for Chinese until Covid blocked all the customers. There are also versions of this in Laos and Cambodia that nobody really talks about yet.
> if things deteriorate into a failed state China will intervene
China and Thailand are conducting policing operations in Burmese territory, it’s already a failed state.
Yes it is currently at a civil war and failed state.
> I wonder if things deteriorate into a failed state
Myanmar is basically a Southeast Asian version of Congo.
All the neighboring countries (China, India, Thailand) have already de facto intervened by maintaining relations with and arming regional warlords, and "their" guys in the Tatmadaw.
For example,
- China and the MDNAA [0] and the Wa State [1], and their "Goma" is Muse and Mongla
- India and the ethnic Chin opposition [2][3] and the Arakan Army [4] (the guys who did the Rohingya Genocide - they flipped from China to India in 23-24), and their "Goma" is Tamu and Sittwe.
- Thailand's Military Government's continued support of the Myanmar Tatmadaw [5], and their "Goma" is Myawaddy, Payathonzhu, Shwekoko (the city mentioned above), and Mawdaung.
China, India, and Thailand are all enabling the worst actors in Myanmar's civil war, and it's the civilians that lose.
> They did that in the 1970s with Cambodia
Which sparked a regional war with Vietnam in 1979, and multiple coups and counter-coups by Chinese and Vietnamese backed factions in Cambodia and Laos.
If Cambodia and Laos was chaotic, Myanmar will be 1,000 times worse, because several ethnic groups in Myanmar have large (1mil+) populations in both China and India, so the risk of regional contagion is massive, and has already started in Manipur [6].
[0] - https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/08/myanmars-junta-los...
[1] - https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/ethnic-issues/wa-state-aims-t...
[2] - https://www.bnionline.net/en/news/chinland-council-and-chin-...
[3] - https://theprint.in/india/chin-rebel-leader-lauds-indias-hel...
[4] - https://thediplomat.com/2024/03/is-india-finally-waking-up-t...
[5] - https://r2pasiapacific.org/files/8231/2022_Thai_response_mya...
[6] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/fighters-myanmar-civil-w...
Well in all fairness to China/India, they might prefer to work with a legitimate government, but the legitimate government of Myanmar (when it existed) has always been completely dysfunctional. It also has never really exercised any control of the borderlands, which are where rebel groups like those in Manipur often congregate. Even prior to the development of the scam industry, out of work Chinese in provinces like Yunnan would often seek opportunity in the more well run EAO quasi-states. There are well-maintained paved roads in Pangkham, which can't be said for much of the country.
> the legitimate government of Myanmar (when it existed) has always been completely dysfunctiona
No argument there. Those guys are horrible. They make Mao, Phibunsongkhram, and Indira Gandhi look like saints.
> It also has never really exercised any control of the borderlands, which are where rebel groups like those in Manipur often congregate
No argument there, despite half my family being veterans of the Dogra Regiment (IYKYK)
> Even prior to the development of the scam industry, out of work Chinese in provinces like Yunnan would often seek opportunity in the more well run EAO quasi-states
Because there was an "anti-corruption crackdown" that in Yunnan lead to criminal gangs (especially in the prostitution and drug space) being kicked out in 2012-15 to Myanmar. In reality, a lot of those guys didn't pay the right people off, so they left for ASEAN.
> There are well-maintained paved roads in Pangkham, which can't be said for much of the country.
100% True. And I don't blame local councils for supporting Chinese investment there.
But it's something even a local village councils could organize if the central government existed.
This is why China, Thailand, and India exert power in the hinterlands of Myanmar.
Myanmar has the right mix of human capital and low cost, but a horrible government meant it's outside countries using their worse people to access that capital (gangs)
The one that did genocide is Junta, not Arakan army. junta made disinformation to western media to cover up their asses and put the blame to Arakan army. Arakan army is main force that is fighting junta.
The Myanmar junta is already a failed state and a client state of China, they're highly dependent on them. If the people running things in Beijing weren't OK with that junta, it wouldn't be in power right now.
> They did that in the 1970s with Cambodia.
You mean the Third Indochina War? It wasn't really about Cambodia being a failed state but a far consequence of a Sino-Soviet split.
That overstates the Soviet aspect and severely understates the Vietnamese aspect.
For Vietnam, Cambodia is their near abroad. Saigon is barely 20 miles away from Cambodia, and the Mekong is the lifeblood of Southern Vietnam, and Cambodian factions (the same ones the Chinese backed in the 1970s) had supported anti-Vietnamese insurgencies in Gia Lai.
Cambodia and Laos became a buffer state for China+Thailand and Vietnam the same way Myanmar has become one for China, Thailand, and India.
I'd bet any money that while China might not go in overtly, they'd be the main silent-backers of Thai forces that could go in overtly with fewer objections from abroad. (Or, maybe it'd be more accurate to say that, the Thais wouldn't care as much about the objections from abroad as the Chinese would?)
It could even be that everyone is misjudging the asians entirely? And it's bad enough that at even the slightest provocation from the warlords, we'll see Thai and Chinese troops flood in. Consequences be damned. This would be the worst outcome for the rest of the world, but probably the best outcome for the people currently being terrorized and held hostage by these thugs. I just hope it doesn't get to that point.
Thailand is not invading Myanmar for China, they are pretty conservative when it comes to such politics.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43150897
> Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on a visit to Beijing earlier this month told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that Thailand would crack down on the scam networks. Just ahead of her visit, Thailand cut off electricity, internet and gas supplies to several areas in Myanmar.. Thailand wants to cooperate with China since reports about scam workers being trafficked through Thailand have circulated widely on Chinese social media. The Thai government and others fear it will discourage the lucrative market of inbound Chinese tourists.
> the Thais wouldn't care as much about the objections from abroad as the Chinese
That is absolutely not how Thailand works. If Thailand does anything, it’ll be exclusively on the Thai side of the border.
If China does anything it will be in support of the Tatmadaw, either overtly or covertly.
The Tatmadaw isn't a unified force either anymore.
It's got it's own factions, and mid-level leadership (especially the farther out you get from Naypyidaw) allies with China, Thailand, or India.
It still is a unified force but crippling house of cards now. Thy are losing and massacring civilization In retaliation on those liberated areas using 500lb bombs. Lost of civilians deaths on those areas there's aren't any conflicts.
But many of them are in people side and spying for revolution forces.
That's interesting, do you have any links to the different factions in the Tat right now?
Sadly, not off the top of my head.
(Edit: here you go. An overview from 2021 by the Tea Circle group formerly at St Anthony's College, Oxford but now at UToronto Munk - https://teacircleoxford.com/politics/peering-under-the-hood-...)
A lot of this came up in a meetup I participated in a couple years ago at HKS.
But at a high level, you'll see Chinese weapon sales [0] happen at the same time as Indian weapon sales [1] to the Tatmadaw, despite both China and India directly competing with each other.
Sadly, Myanmar was always a basket case because the British ignored it when it was British India and later British Burma, so outside the Bamar core, the state never truly existed on the ground.
And after the 2020 China-India standoff, Myanmar became even more of a conflict zone because at it's shortest it's a 40 mile buffer zone between Assam and Yunnan.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/un-expert-says-russia-china-se...
[1] - https://amp.dw.com/en/how-india-is-supporting-myanmars-milit...
I see a problem with this plan...
Scammers just require a laptop and an internet connection.
1 little honda generator and 1 star link connection could keep 100 scammers scamming 24x7 with very little fuel use.
Little generators are already commonplace in Myanmar. Can't comment on starlink connections, but I assume people will find a way...
Cutting off the grid electricity might prevent electricity theft for bitcoin mining, but it's going to do nothing against scammers.
Yes but this is a strong signal, locals of that area no longer have electricity. A few actions like this and scammers become undesirable unless they share more and more of their profits which at some point become untenable.
Good luck to the people being held prisoner in these hubs. Hopefully they can escape the abuse and violence, and not just be trafficked to another hub.
it's a grim situation... i hope there are resources available to help those who manage to escape, and that more is done to prevent these hubs from operating in the first place.
What a horrible fate to be abducted to one of these hellholes.
Who would have guessed - that this is what the singularity boiled down to- AI scaming and hacking humans - which thus regresses into tribal factions. What a letdown!
Gut Ding will Kurzweil haben.
I mean isn't that what a lot of cyberpunk predicted?
Coming soon.
Once DOGE eliminates the US government, we will all be either vassals of megacorporations, living in corp arcologies, or homeless with our punk band in burnt-out shipping containers.
Old news, they turned on diesel generators and Starlink and shifted around.
They obviously would have taken a hit and Thailand has already shut down cell towers on the Cambodia border near Poi Pet where they moved some operations.
They should have been reading HN and how solar is cheaper than anything else, silly criminals doing real world stuff.
This all happened because they kidnapped a Chinese actor, maybe fake casting call ads are not the wisest idea - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Wang_Xing
Tbh I feel like the people didn't care much about it because the people who got kidnapped there were mostly attracted by job offers that were known to be shady (quick money), so there wasn't much discussion around this. The actor getting kidnapped is different: People suddenly found that you can be kidnapped even when the offer seems legit and only staying in Thailand. This forced the government (both China and Thailand) to take action to address the concerns.
But I think this will come back again. This kidnapping thing is not new, and it caught media attention a few years ago as well, they just go silent for a period of time and continue their operation later.
it's very odd that China doesn't really care about an estimated 100K of its citizens getting trafficked in this manner.
It's such an open secret that there was a $500MM box office movie about it last year, and media censorship is so heavy in China that I wonder what admitting this even means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_More_Bets
They backed a group of militias to invade areas where this was happening [0]. They also pressured family members of tens of thousands Chinese in northern Myanmar to return [1]. China literally waltzed into Kokang and put the top scam leaders on a plane.
The real question is why there hasn't been any remotely comparable response from the US. Every EAO that matters is aligned with China and thus doesn't care when Americans are scammed. The US should make them care.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_1027
[1] https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3141474/beij...
If it were just scamming it would be one thing but for China it's a much bigger deal because it also involves human trafficking of their citizens. While Americans are being scammed, none of them are getting kidnapped and getting essentially enslaved at these scam farms.
Thanks for the links though; I was unaware the PLA was directly involved with the latest offenses.
What do you expect from a government where the President, the First Lady and the unofficial vice president are all paddling meme coins? They really, really, really don't care about any of this.
> 100K of its citizens getting trafficked
Is there public data on their demographics, e.g. occupation, income, age, credit score, region of China?
Nonsense, you have people who got in debt to loansharks to pay of mostly gambling and property debts and then get trafficked.
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I've been calling for services to be cut to internet fraudsters until their governments enforce reasonable laws.
This is a good thing.
Similar thing happens in Ukraine when Russia bombs electric stations in certain cities, all of a sudden amount of scam calls to Russia drop to nearly 0.