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Comment by mvdtnz | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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?

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".

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

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.

What motivation would the CCP have to back this?

Other than the massive profit?

And the fact that these scam centers primarily target rich western countries that are at political odds with the CCP?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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