The country is having a civil war for the last 60 years and was under sanctions until something like 2015. What else would anybody expect to be happening besides this, whoring in nearby Thailand and genociding minorities?
The scam centers started around 2017. They are stared in collaboration with BFG which is under command of Military.
60 year cilvil war is nothing compare to current Revoultionary war where due to military coup and 90% of people are against Military and youth formed alliances called PDF , and getting arms , miltiary training , fighting back to restore the country's democracy and rule of law.
But during that , Rule of Law is totally diminished and we are under rise of crime. The military regime allow the scams center to free roam and let the thugs to do what they want to create unrest.
It's a bit of a shame that the article is written only from the Japanese perspective. I would have been more interested in knowing China's position over this whole affair. Given that:
- The original investors were Chinese
- The video footage shown is hosted on a Chinese platform
- The signage on the videos for "restaurants" and "hospitals" in the videos is in Chinese
- "A Chinese-style drum would echo through the compound each time a deposit of over $100,000 was received"
And the fact that Thailand receives a great deal of Chinese tourists, I expect at least some of the kidnappings affecting Chinese citizens - and then some of the scam victims to be Chinese as well.
I would expect China to be more affected and to able to exert more influence over this situation than Japan.
China is very affected and has been tightening the screws hard. The situation really blew up when a Chinese actor was lured to Thailand, kidnapped across the border and forced to work in a scam center:
But the scammer choose lawless places like Myanmar for a reason and while China can exert pressure on individual bigwigs, they can't stop those small enough to fly under the radar.
China has the same culture- and the same scamming problematic. Its like a bigger mafiosi promising to solve crime and restore order by sending a lowlevel thief to the fishes.
Low-thrust societies can not be repaired by topdown level commands. All that happens, is yet another paint job, another face restoring measurement, while the rot behind remains the same.This is not some "aberration" from the fringe of the Chinese empire- this right here, is a sample of its core values under the CCP, undiluted by propaganda cosmetics.
I always thought that people willfully participate in scams to make more money. For example, I know there are quite a few telephone scam centers in India, that call US folks for SSN fraud etc. I thought these folks just work for salary.
It's scary to look at the scale of 'organized' crime / modern slavery. This is almost like Squid Games.
Three months ago there is a report that 119 Thai citizens were deported from Cambodia after a call center ring was busted. Out of these numbers, 100 willfully worked for the ring. 15 worked for the illegal gambling establishment. Only 4 minors are reportedly the victim of human trafficking. Ironically, when those people came back (willfully or otherwise), they will claim that they were being "misled" or "coerced" to do it even though the evidence suggests that they willfully do so.
Thai authorities are trying to combat this issue by cutting off supply of basic utilities (electricity, network connection) to hinder their work. The government claimed that this reduces the volume of scam attempts by 20%, though it's not entirely gone as long as they can find a way to circumvent it
> Out of these numbers, 100 willfully worked for the ring. 15 worked for the illegal gambling establishment. Only 4 minors are reportedly the victim of human trafficking. Ironically, when those people came back (willfully or otherwise), they will claim that they were being "misled" or "coerced" to do it even though the evidence suggests that they willfully do so.
Exactly. Same as when prostitutes get picked up. They say they're trafficked or coerced to get a lighter sentence. Cops love it because they get to act like they're on the tail of serious crime and get more resources. Win-win at the expense of everyone else.
This is about to get way worse with AI. They'll be able to call you, say nothing, you'll answer, "hello?" and then hang up and by then they've cloned your voice and left a message on your parents' answering machine that sounds like you begging for them to transfer money because you're in danger. They'll be video calling everybody on linkedin with a job in accounting and will have the face and voice of their boss, asking them to transfer money. The situation is about to be terrible, and the only thing keeping it remotely in check is that most people choose to be somewhat moral.
> by then they've cloned your voice and left a message on your parents' answering machine that sounds like you begging for them to transfer money because you're in danger.
You don't need to clone someone's voice for that; that's a scam common enough that one of my parents almost fell for it. Cloning someone's voice might tick up the likelihood of success by some amount, but would the investment in the research-and-infrastructure (spinning up the machines to clone the voice, researching the person you're planning on scamming to find their relatives' phone numbers, etc) be worthwhile when you can just dial every phone number in the tri-state area and just try it with a panicked-sounding young woman's voice?
Yes and no; there is a tipping point, past which hardware/software vendors will be forced to adopt countermeasures and new ways to verify identity.
We will lose a lot though; the most prosperous societies really rely on high levels of interpersonal trust (which allows people to easily do things together, whether that's leaving their buggy outside when they go to buy a coffee or commercial relations). It would be a shame to see that get destroyed.
I find it difficult to believe that AI will ever be able to clone your voice with just one word being said. There is a lot of variety in someone's voice thats not captured with the word "hello". Additionally, people have been saying for years that they can simply record you saying "Yes" and use that to agree to things but I have yet to see an epidemic of that being an issue either.
This is also the danger with these - apparent - AI meeting attendant bots being a thing now; organizations should ban them wholesale, as if they're unknown / unauthorised 3rd party ones, who knows what they'll do with the voice data of e.g. the boss.
On the capability side, I say hello _when you call me_ differently than _when I call you_. Anybody who knows me will certainly have a sense something is off.
Socially, we all should be used to the idea of calling back using official numbers, and not closing an agreement on the first call.
But this is a numbers game. I imagine this vector would be more successful on third-world migrant workers, than in the first-world economies.
There was a talk on the last CCC that covered romance scams from "call centers" in similar conditions in Myanmar. It gives some insights into the daily life from the perspective of someone who managed to flee the compound and take some documents with him. I was very surprised at the level of sophistication and organization that went into this scam. I knew about the tech support scam centers, but I still saw romance scam as something done on the individual level, not fully organized.
Romance scams of the mail order bride variety were pretty orginized, but not that sophisticated about 10-15 years ago in where I'm from. Was mostly a quick cash opportunity for studends of language faculties that had moral complex lax enough to scam people, but not lax enough to do outright prostitution.
Prostitution seems much more moral than scamming people. Charge for service, provide service. I certainly have far more respect for sex workers than thieves / scammers.
These might be features of large scale purpose-built scam centers, but there are myriad smaller centers occupying apartment blocks, whole floors of office towers, and of course ex-Casino buildings and so on.
eg Cambodia is especially rife with these. There are so many recently-built apartment blocks that lie empty, often built with corrupt money anyway, they make easy and fairly low-key dens.
Scams will always exist, so long as there are things of value and humans are involved. See different unofficial currencies used in prisons.
When it comes to scams, part of the scam is aiding the victim to making a transaction in a way that can’t be reversed. Cryptocurrencies, call cards, gift cards, even in-game currencies for online games. As long as it is liquid and carries a value, some entrepreneurial scammer will try to use it to increase their profit. Official currency transfer channels (banks, remittance centers) are usually the focus of laws and law enforcement, so scammers know to move to other forms of value. Cut-outs and fences are common in many forms of scams because these are tools that help them avoid the banking systems until the scammed value is laundered.
Readit News
Not just scam gangs, the thugs collaborative with military,kidnap and sell youths to junta for
1. Forced military drafting.
2. Human trafficking
3. Organ harvesting .
That what military dictatorship done to our democractic country within 5 years.
But during that , Rule of Law is totally diminished and we are under rise of crime. The military regime allow the scams center to free roam and let the thugs to do what they want to create unrest.
- The original investors were Chinese
- The video footage shown is hosted on a Chinese platform
- The signage on the videos for "restaurants" and "hospitals" in the videos is in Chinese
- "A Chinese-style drum would echo through the compound each time a deposit of over $100,000 was received"
And the fact that Thailand receives a great deal of Chinese tourists, I expect at least some of the kidnappings affecting Chinese citizens - and then some of the scam victims to be Chinese as well.
I would expect China to be more affected and to able to exert more influence over this situation than Japan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Wang_Xing
There was even a Chinese blockbuster movie about this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_More_Bets
But the scammer choose lawless places like Myanmar for a reason and while China can exert pressure on individual bigwigs, they can't stop those small enough to fly under the radar.
Low-thrust societies can not be repaired by topdown level commands. All that happens, is yet another paint job, another face restoring measurement, while the rot behind remains the same.This is not some "aberration" from the fringe of the Chinese empire- this right here, is a sample of its core values under the CCP, undiluted by propaganda cosmetics.
It's scary to look at the scale of 'organized' crime / modern slavery. This is almost like Squid Games.
Thai authorities are trying to combat this issue by cutting off supply of basic utilities (electricity, network connection) to hinder their work. The government claimed that this reduces the volume of scam attempts by 20%, though it's not entirely gone as long as they can find a way to circumvent it
Exactly. Same as when prostitutes get picked up. They say they're trafficked or coerced to get a lighter sentence. Cops love it because they get to act like they're on the tail of serious crime and get more resources. Win-win at the expense of everyone else.
You don't need to clone someone's voice for that; that's a scam common enough that one of my parents almost fell for it. Cloning someone's voice might tick up the likelihood of success by some amount, but would the investment in the research-and-infrastructure (spinning up the machines to clone the voice, researching the person you're planning on scamming to find their relatives' phone numbers, etc) be worthwhile when you can just dial every phone number in the tri-state area and just try it with a panicked-sounding young woman's voice?
They just call at 3 am, cry and cry to make the voice difficult to recognize and then a friend/kidnapper/corrupt-police-officer ask for the money.
We will lose a lot though; the most prosperous societies really rely on high levels of interpersonal trust (which allows people to easily do things together, whether that's leaving their buggy outside when they go to buy a coffee or commercial relations). It would be a shame to see that get destroyed.
I get a call and there is a green checkmark saying "GPG VEIFIED" and then I know it's who I expect.
On the capability side, I say hello _when you call me_ differently than _when I call you_. Anybody who knows me will certainly have a sense something is off.
Socially, we all should be used to the idea of calling back using official numbers, and not closing an agreement on the first call.
But this is a numbers game. I imagine this vector would be more successful on third-world migrant workers, than in the first-world economies.
Talk is in German, but dubbed into English by the community. https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-erpressung-aus-dem-internet-auf-...
eg Cambodia is especially rife with these. There are so many recently-built apartment blocks that lie empty, often built with corrupt money anyway, they make easy and fairly low-key dens.
https://youtu.be/kSNn2pHtRH4?si=6WAbOG4p6bd80dJ8
When it comes to scams, part of the scam is aiding the victim to making a transaction in a way that can’t be reversed. Cryptocurrencies, call cards, gift cards, even in-game currencies for online games. As long as it is liquid and carries a value, some entrepreneurial scammer will try to use it to increase their profit. Official currency transfer channels (banks, remittance centers) are usually the focus of laws and law enforcement, so scammers know to move to other forms of value. Cut-outs and fences are common in many forms of scams because these are tools that help them avoid the banking systems until the scammed value is laundered.