Mereja.Forum

[Revelations]

Be warned and warn others too!


https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/202 ... l-hnk-dst/

[Union]

Two years ago, some girl that looks like her used to call and text me a lot. I told that bi'tch I don't like Asian bit'chs, then she disappeared after trying 3 times over the 2 years period.

[Revelations]

Two years ago, some girl that looks like her used to call and text me a lot. I told that bi'tch I don't like Asian bit'chs, then she disappeared after trying 3 times over the 2 years period.

There's more to this scam that's too scary than just the texting scams, actual modern day slavery of educated people lured by a job offer in Asia. The victim from SF has financial related job still fell for the scam and lost a million $$$. But at least he's a "free man" to rebuild his life unlike those lured by a job offer into actual slavery.

[Revelations]

It is in one of these compounds that Indian national Rakesh, 33, worked for 11 months as a scammer stealing thousands of dollars from unsuspecting victims like CY.

From San Francisco, someone like Rakesh may look like the bad guy. But he was also the victim of a brutal scam. Lured to Thailand with promises of white-collar jobs, thousands of people from across the world are trafficked to criminal hubs in Myanmar where they are held against their will and forced to steal millions in cryptocurrency.

TheUN estimates that up to 120,000 people could be heldin compounds across Myanmar, with another 100,000 people held in Cambodia and elsewhere in conditions that amount to modern slavery.

In December 2022 Rakesh, who asked CNN not to use his full name to protect his family’s privacy, landed in Bangkok, Thailand, where he thought he was due to start a new job in IT.

He was educated as a chemical engineer in India but had been unemployed for over six months and was desperate to find work,even if that meant leaving his family and moving abroad.

A driver sent by the company picked him up at the airport, but instead of taking Rakesh to an office in Bangkok they drove seven hours to Mae Sot, a Thai town near the Myanmar border. Rakesh grew alarmed; he called the agent who had offered him the job but was told not to worry, he would be working in Mae Sot.



“In this situation, I get a blank in my mind,” Rakesh said of the helplessness he felt, unable to do anything except follow the agent’s instructions.

After spending a night in a hotel in Mae Sot, a second driver picked him up. A short drive later they crossed a river and arrived at a gated compound guarded by armed soldiers, he said. Without realizing it, Rakesh had been trafficked into Myanmar, to a compound named Gate 25.

Surrounded by the Moei river like a moat, Gate 25 stands eerily quiet during the day. From across the river, it appears to be a modern apartment complex, but the 10-foot-high fence and guard tower suggest otherwise.

Upon entering the compound, Rakesh said his passport was confiscated and he was presented with a contract — he was to become a professional scammer, stealing money from people across the world. “This you need to do... otherwise I will kill you,” Rakesh recalled a Chinese man telling him.

He refused to sign the contract and was thrown into what he describes as a jail cell, where he was kept with no food or water. Three days later he’d made up his mind -- he’d do whatever it took to survive.

[Revelations]

His managers set him up with a fake persona and taught him how to scam. Posing as Salt Lake City investor “Klara Semonov,” Rakesh spent 16-hour days chatting with potential victims as a beautiful blonde, earning their trust and building a relationship.

“Seventy to eighty percent fall for fake love,” Rakesh told CNN.

His job was to make contact and get the victim hooked, working through the night to target Americans, Brits, Brazilians and Mexicans during their waking hours. Once they were ready to invest, they were handed up the chain to a manager or team leader who would secure the investment.

Modern slavery under our nose


Standing on a hilltop in Mae Sot overlooking Myanmar’s Myawaddy region, Mechelle Moore, founder of the NGO Global Alms that combats human trafficking and gender-based violence, points out scam compounds dotting the hillside. What used to be a quiet farming area has now been transformed by special economic zones and casino towns that light up the night sky.

Multiple countries in the Mekong region have established special economic zones with favorable economic policies to attract trade and foreign investment both at home and abroad. But they are loosely regulated and often situated in border regions with a long history of transnational crime.

"Special economic zones, particularly in the Mekong, have become magnets for organized crime syndicates, at first for casinos, trafficking and related money laundering, and recently for online fraud,” said Jeremy Douglas, Regional representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Southeast Asia.

“They're almost like free zones for criminals where the rule of law doesn't apply."

In the shadow of Myanmar’s civil war and the Covid pandemic, these projects branched out into scam operations. Meters away from Thailand the compounds use Thai telecommunication services, the essential infrastructure needed to run transnational crime on the cloud.

[Union]

Right, who can forget thousands of people that worked for free and died building roads and stadiums for the world cup in Qatar. These people were systematically recruited and promised success.

Two years ago, some girl that looks like her used to call and text me a lot. I told that bi'tch I don't like Asian bit'chs, then she disappeared after trying 3 times over the 2 years period.

There's more to this scam that's too scary than just the texting scams, actual modern day slavery of educated people lured by a job offer in Asia. The victim from SF has financial related job still fell for the scam and lost a million $$$. But at least he's a "free man" to rebuild his life unlike those lured by a job offer into actual slavery.

[Revelations]

The scam

Behind the messaging apps on the computer screens were people like CY, who put their faith in a new friend online with the promise of money and an escape from the pressures of everyday life.

Jessica first introduced CY, who works in finance, to the idea of investing in cryptocurrency a few weeks into their friendship. She told him she’d made millions trading gold using cryptocurrency with the help of insider information from her uncle in Hong Kong.



Jessica taught CY how to invest first instructing him to download a trading app that he says looked legitimate, and then walking him through the investment process step by step.Source: CY

In the following weeks every day for CY began and ended with a message from Jessica. Soon she taught him how to invest, first instructing him to install a trading app. It looked legitimate, but was in fact a clone of a real trading app. He started small by investing a few thousand dollars.

[Revelations]

A playground for criminals

The border regions of Southeast Asian countries like Myanmar, Laos, Thailand have long been a fertile breeding ground for organized crime. The so-called “Golden Triangle” between the three has been one of the world’s most successful drug producing regions for decades.

Cambodia saw a spate of pig butchering scam centers run by Chinese organized crime crop up in 2021 and 2022 until the government eventually started to crack down.

But it is Myanmar, which has been beset with unrest and a deepening bloody civil war since the 2021 military coup, that has proven to be a lucrative base for scam operations. Out of reach and unaccountable, there is little the international community can do to help their citizens.

The Thai government has launched a campaign to raise awareness among the Thai public and prevent people from falling victim to scams, but hundreds of people are still being trafficked through Asia each week to serve the demands of the scam centers, according to UNODC’s Douglas.

Thai Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong told CNN he plans to set up a task force to investigate what can be done to stop scam operations from using Thai telecommunications services. He also wants to target corrupt civil servants accused of aiding human trafficking rings, or of obstructing efforts to dismantle them.

While countries around the world are coming together to help both fraud and trafficking victims, Myanmar's military government appears to have done little to stop the lucrative trade.

"The militias offer territory and protection in return for a cut of the profits. It's symbiotic - the lines are blurred between the criminals and those they rent to," he said. CNN has reached out to the Myanmar military junta for comment but has yet to receive a reply.In recent weeks state media has announced a crackdown on illegal gambling and scam centers.

And in October a powerful alliance of militias opposed to the juntalaunched a new and highly effective offensive in Myanmar’s northeast,partly motivated by the desire to stamp out scam centers, capturing the town of Laukkai and returning multiple alleged gang members to China for prosecution.

Months into his confinement, Rakesh called the Indian embassy in Yangon for help. With a group of friends clamoring around the phone they told an officer at the embassy that they are being held against their will and tortured. In a phone call verified by CNN, the official told them: “You people have landed in trouble by your decision, so you have to wait.”

Rakesh pleaded with him. The fighting in Myanmar had gotten close to Gate 25 and they could hear shelling nearby. “There is one guy there who can help you, but he will charge something,” the official said finally, giving Rakesh the number of an alleged smuggler.

[Union]

OMG

There are lots of idiots out there who deserve it

[Revelations]

CNN reached out to the Indian embassy in Yangon and Indian foreign ministry but did not hear back.

Rakesh was eventually released when his contract finished in November 2023. He believes he was let go because he simply wasn’t good enough at scamming. With a steady flow of workers to be tricked and trafficked, it’s often easier to simply replace bad scammers than to force them to work, Rakesh believes.

After paying a 20,000 baht ($566) “transportation fee,” Rakesh crossed the Moei river back into Thailand where a driver was waiting for him. He had been put in touch with Tana by a journalist he had contacted to help him escape the compound. Now Tana and a colleague were waiting for him in a mall parking lot, tracking his GPS as he inched towards them.

After 11 months of confinement, he was left with nothing but a backpack with his personal belongings. He wasn’t paid for any of his work.

In a video of Rakesh’s rescue shared with CNN, he gets in Tana’s car and begins telling them about everything he endured in the compound, but there’s one question on his mind.

“One thing I don’t understand,” he says. “Why they are not raiding the campus?”

“Why doesn’t anyone rescue you? Because it’s the largest organized crime unit in the world,” Tana responds.