Shady, violent operations of Southeast Asian scam farms back in spotlight
Recent high-profile rescue of mainland actor Wang Xing has put the plight of thousands trapped in compounds in focus
University graduate Ariyan* is still haunted by his trip to Thailand last summer.
The 25-year-old could not have imagined his visit to the country to start a new job would include a terrifying journey to an unknown location in cars loaded with guns and armed guards.
Soon after landing in Bangkok, he and a few friends were whisked away to a compound deep in the mountains of Myanmar’s Kayin state, just across the border from Thailand.
Like thousands of others, including Hongkongers, they had been lured to Southeast Asia for forced labour, where their job was to swindle people across the globe in so-called scam farms, offering everything from get-rich-quick schemes to fake romance online.
“When we said we didn’t want to work here, we wanted to go back, at this moment, the Chinese [man] was very angry. He took out an electric shock machine and touched our bodies for an electric shock for like 10 seconds,” recalled Ariyan, a Bangladeshi.
The plight of victims such as Ariyan – and the shady and often violent operations of scam farms run by criminal syndicates in lawless areas of countries such as Myanmar and Cambodia – has again been thrust into the spotlight by the recent high-profile rescue of mainland Chinese actor Wang Xing.
