Thousands of Chinese have been lured abroad and forced to become scammers

“Should I feel anything?” The human eyed man asked, sitting in a padded cell with handcuffs around his wrists.

He assured Chinese investigators about the time he said he was going to kill a stranger – a human sacrifice to celebrate his sworn brotherhood with a business partner.

“Isn’t he a living, breathing human being?” an investigator asked.

“I don’t feel,” the man continued.

The scene may look like it came out of a crime drama. In fact, it is part of a documentary by Settiyong Tsiyal Media – a look inside the prisons of the justice system that is almost unheard of in a country where court proceedings are held by the public.

The hungry man who answered the questions was Chen Dawei, a member of the evil Wei family, one of the many powerful mafia groups that for many years ran in the city of Laukkaing in Myanmar.

His confessional form is just one part of a months-long propaganda push by Chinese officials. The Chinese warned the same in South East Asia Dollar-Dollar Scam Scam Scam Scam, and emphasized the crackdown of the Chinese government that put thousands of industries, and stole billions.

Ang mensahe nga gusto nga ipadala sa China, ingon nga gibutang kini sa usa ka investigator, klaro: “Gipasidan-an ang uban nga mga tawo, bisan kinsa ka, kung diin ka, kung asa ka, kung asa ka, kung asa ka, kung asa ka, kung asa ka, kung asa ka, kung asa ka, asa ka magbuhat sa mga tawo nga dili maayo.

Or, to use a Chinese Idiom: Kill the chicken to scare the monkey.

There are some big cocks in the Weis, Lius, Mings and Bais – Ming-Edfat-Esties families that stood in power in the early years of the year 2000.

Under their rule, the broken back water has been transformed into a flashy hub of casinos and red light districts.

More recent are scam farms – which hold people against their will, forcing them to deceive strangers online, or face harsh punishment or even death. Many of those trapped were Chinese and targeted people in China.

But the families’ empires came to an end in 2023, when the Myanmar authorities seized them and handed them over to China. Since then, they have been tried in Chinese courts for crimes ranging from fraud to human trafficking to homicide.

Examples are now being made from families: 11 members of the Ming clan and five of the bais were sentenced to death, while dozens were given long prison terms. Prosecution is expected for Lius and the Weis.

Their shameful fall from grace is clear in the documentaries they show, from the glint of their handcuffs to the color of their prison uniforms.

It’s a far cry from the lives they lived two years ago.

The godfathers of laukkaing rose to power after Min Aung Hlaing, who now heads Myanmar’s Military government, led an operation that dominated the town in the past.

The military leader was looking for co-operative allies, and the baocheng – then a representative of the warlord – footed the bill.

BAI was appointed by the Chairman of Laukkaing District and his family commands a 2,000-strong militia, Chinese Media reported.

In the power vacuum left by these changes, a close family emerged, securing military and political power.

According to Chinese investigators, the Wei family has a member of Parliament and another military commander. Meanwhile, Lius controlled critical infrastructure such as water and electricity and exerted strong influence over local security forces.

For years they made their money through gambling and pimping.

But more recently they have expanded into cyberscam operations, with each family controlling multiple scam compounds and casinos raking in billions of dollars.

While families live large on lavish banquets and luxury cars, a culture of disgusting violence is buried behind the walls of their scam compounds, Chinese authorities say.

Testimonies collected from released workers point to a common pattern of abuse: fingers chopped off with knives, zaps with electric batons and regular beatings. UNCO-OUCTIATION workers are locked in small dark rooms and starved or beaten until they give up.

Many Chinese workers are entrenched there with good job offers – no doubt a temptation amid China’s economic slowdown.

Strange stories of such scam centers found in the daily chatter of China, from GOXI rides on Social Media and Pop Culture.

No more rusts, a 2023 blockbuster shares the Chinese doing business with a foreign SCAM Farm, which has earned Thailand a reputation as a transit hub in Myanmar and Cambodia.

In January of this year, the National Spothlight on Wang Xing, a small Chinese actress who flew to Thailand for an acting gig, to be taken to a scam center across the Myanmar border.

His family’s search for him goes viral and is finally saved.

But Wang was in the lucky minority. Many Chinese are still searching for their missing loved ones in scam centers in South East Asia.

“My cousin was hit there four or five years ago. We haven’t heard from him. My aunt is crying every day, it’s hard to describe her situation now,” a Weibo user wrote last month.

Selina Ho, Associate Professor specializing in Chinese Politics at the National University of Singapore, informed of the latest crackdown, the Chinese authorities seeking to calm domestic feelings and reassure the families of the victims “.

The UN estimates that hundreds of thousands of people are still trapped in scam centers around the world.

Much to Beijing’s chagrin, those running the many Scam Centers are often Chinese themselves.

This is the common knowledge of Chinese citizens. “Once you’re abroad, the only people you can’t trust are your own countrymen,” read one comment on Weibo.

“The fact that Chinese nationals are the masterminds of many of these operations has damaged China’s image,” Ivan FrancesChini, Co-Author of Scam: Inside STANDOWATE ASIA: Inside the BBC.

As concerns rise at home, Chinese authorities are eager to show their determination to stamp out massive scam networks.

Since 2023, Chinese and Myanmar authorities have arrested more than 57,000 Chinese nationals for their role in cyberscams, the state reported.

And they make it clear that it’s not just gods.

In October, China announced another syndicate they described as a “new generation of power” in Laukkaing that was “less violent” than the bad families.

In – yet another – documentary of the state media, a Chinese official who investigated this syndicate what his team leader said, “if this case is not solved, there will be a permanent stain on your career.”

For all the effort that China has put into cracking its cracks and the ensuing publicity, the figures offer some optimism: Cyberscams were reported last year, and the authorities said that such crimes “have effectively handled such crimes”.

As one official told the documentary viewers, the investigations of Scam gangs in Myanmar made him realize “how happy we are in China, and how happy we are in China”.

Additional Reporting by Kelly Ng