The Similar Ordeals of Victims
Over the past year, Xu Bochun had rarely had nightmares. However, after the incident of Chinese actor Wang Xing being deceived and taken to Myanmar was exposed, he saw various scenes of the local area on his mobile phone, and he started tossing and turning at night, unable to sleep well.
The 39 – year – old experienced almost the same thing as Wang Xing more than a year ago.
In July 2023, Xu Bochun, who lived in Shanghai, took on a job as a temporary actor in Yunnan for three months. On July 6, he took a 36 – hour hard – seat train from Shanghai South Railway Station to Kunming, and then transferred to Xishuangbanna. On the night of his arrival, his mobile phone and passport were taken away, and he was threatened by people with long knives to climb over mountains, cross the border into Myanmar, and finally was forced to become a member of a fraud park.
There, he witnessed the fragility of life: four people were shot and killed, and those without performance would be beaten with sticks. “Begging for mercy was useless.” But he wasn’t as lucky as Wang Xing, who was rescued in four days. He endured such days for more than two months until his family paid nearly one million yuan in ransom and he was released.
After coming out, Xu Bochun kept having nightmares and losing his hair. In those dreams, he was still standing, being beaten on the buttocks with sticks continuously.
In August 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report stating that more than 120,000 people were forced to carry out online fraud activities in Myanmar, and 100,000 people were in Cambodia. In the same year, the movie “No More Bets” about telecom fraud was released in China, triggering public discussion about fraud parks. However, the incident gradually faded from people’s sight.
The disappearance of Wang Xing made the public realize that the Myanmar fraud had resurfaced. Li Ling, a doctoral student at the Institute of Asia and North Africa, University of Venice, Italy, who has long been concerned about the development of the Southeast Asian fraud industry and victim support, told BBC Chinese that the fraud crime has actually been booming. There is communication among parks in various places. “Compared with 2022, (the scale) has become larger and more extensive.”
She also mentioned that unlike Cambodia, after the military coup in Myanmar in 2021, the military – government institutions “completely disintegrated,” which made it difficult for foreign governments and non – governmental organizations to intervene in the rescue. And the local victims suffered much more brutal violence than those in Cambodia.
High – paying Jobs as Baits
Xu Bochun had been taking on temporary acting jobs for nearly a decade, regarding it as a way to make a living. He originally worked in an educational institution but was laid off after the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. He became a full – time slash – worker, and taking on temporary acting jobs became “almost routine.”
At the end of June 2023, he saw a recruitment in a WeChat group for a job in Yunnan, claiming a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan. He calculated that if he could stay in the film crew for two to three months, with food and accommodation provided, it could relieve his living pressure and allow him to save money, “to cope with the uncertainty of the current general environment.”
He set off from Shanghai in early July and it took him nearly two days to reach the gathering point in Xishuangbanna. When night fell, Xu Bochun found that there were four other people who came “for work” like him. After the person in charge counted the number of people, they were taken to the foot of a mountain. As soon as they got off the car, “except for the moonlight, there were no streetlights or staff, and it felt like there was nothing.” Only then did Xu Bochun feel something was wrong.
At this time, more than a dozen men in camouflage uniforms emerged from the woods, with knives at their waists. One of them spoke to comfort them: “Don’t panic, don’t be afraid.” He said that on the other side of the mountain, there were many goods smuggled from Thailand, and they needed Xu Bochun and the others to cooperate, “to carry them,” “It will only take two or three days to go back and forth.”
As soon as he finished speaking, these people grabbed Xu’s hand and walked forward. Xu Bochun described that it was not a normal mountain path, full of streams and stones. After walking for a while, “the shoes were soaked through, and the thighs were smeared with a lot of mud.” But the “camouflage – clothed men” didn’t allow them to back out.
During the break, Xu Bochun asked the four people why they came. One of them replied, “About a week ago, an old acquaintance invited us to a meal and to sing KTV when he came back home. He said he made a lot of money from this kind of goods – carrying work.”
The economic downturn has led to living difficulties, prompting people to seek a living elsewhere.
In November 2023, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China released a work report on the governance of telecom fraud. The data showed that among the more than 253,000 people prosecuted by Chinese prosecutors for three types of crimes, namely telecom network fraud, assisting information network criminal activities, and concealing and disguising criminal proceeds, 53% did not have a stable occupation. It is worth noting that 31% of the criminals were under 25 years old. The report described that students on campus and newly graduated students are gradually becoming the targets of absorption by criminal groups.
Li Ling conducted a follow – up survey on Chinese telecom fraud survivors (those who escaped from Myanmar) from 2022 to 2024. Among the more than 100 people she contacted, more than half were under 25 years old.
“Now the employment rate of Chinese college students or secondary vocational school students is very low, which also prompts them to go abroad to seek a living.” In June 2023, the youth unemployment rate in China for the 16 – to – 24 – year – old age group climbed to 21.3%, reaching a new high since statistics began in 2018.
In addition, Li Ling also found that the provinces where the victims came from became more diverse. “Before, most of the people we met were likely from Jiangxi, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong. But recently, we’ve also met people from the three northeastern provinces.” She speculated that as people in neighboring areas became more vigilant, scammers began to target more distant places.
Scammers’ Penetration into WeChat Groups
After walking through several muddy roads, taking motorcycles and large trucks, two days later, Xu Bochun and his group finally arrived at a farmhouse courtyard in the northern suburbs of Myanmar.
He described the scene at first sight: the courtyard was enclosed, and no light could be seen. More than 30 Burmese mercenaries in green uniforms, with long – step rifles and electric batons, surrounded seventy or eighty bare – footed Chinese men squatting on the ground. They were all handcuffed, and many of them looked like minors. “Some were being beaten while lying against the wall,” and the ones beating them with sticks were Chinese.
Xu Bochun said that the courtyard was a “human trafficking transfer point” – every day, agents from the park would come to select people. Each person who arrived at the courtyard had a label, such as “Xu Bochun, July 11th.” He heard a rumor that if a person was not selected within 30 days, they would be sent to Myawaddy or a medical ship for organ trafficking.
Before being selected, Xu Bochun said that these Chinese would force – unlock the mobile phones of the trapped people with face – recognition. “The first step is to transfer all the money in your Alipay and WeChat. The second step is to force – take out loans with your mobile phone.” He saw people resist, and as a result, four people were shot and killed in front of him. The BBC has not been able to verify this behavior.
The third step is to join the WeChat groups of the trapped people. The Chinese in the fraud gang would use small accounts to sneak into the WeChat groups in the trapped people’s mobile phones to observe. After a long time, they would slowly send various false messages to deceive people to come over.
Constantly learning the 话术 is a key to deception. Li Ling also felt that fraud has reached a state of “being hard to guard against.” It’s not just about being vigilant. “If you dig deeper into the Wang Xing incident, you will find that they (the scammers) use very professional 话术.”
For example, the notice that Xu Bochun was deceived with to go to Yunnan initially stated that it was an “S – level big production,” “big actors, big directors, big production” – which made the victims think that confidentiality was necessary. So after arriving in Yunnan, when the other party asked for their mobile phones and identity cards, he didn’t have any doubts. Moreover, after receiving the notice, he had to go through an interview first. “They had requirements for height, age not too old, and also required the ability to speak some lines.”
Fraud has penetrated into various industries and is not limited to the Chinese – speaking community in mainland China. In December last year, Taiwanese fire – dancing performer Xie Yuepeng saw a recruitment for overseas performances in the Facebook community “Street Artist Information Exchange Platform.” The post was in traditional Chinese characters, and the recruitment process was exactly the same as what he usually contacted in Taiwan. There were also many industry friends leaving messages in the comment section.
After private messaging, the other party could show the transportation arrangements and detailed handover arrangements with personnel. “I really thought they were Taiwanese,” so Xie Yuepeng boarded the plane to Bangkok without suspicion. After landing, he took a seven – or eight – hour car ride. It was not until he took a wooden boat across the river from Mae Sot that he realized something was wrong.
“The language the other party spoke was different, and there were soldiers with guns, fully armed there,” he also noticed that the flag inserted in the park was no longer the Thai national flag. “At that time, I started to think: Oh no, I’m in big trouble.”
“This is very scary,” Li Ling felt that the fraud group had hired various outsourcing personnel to write different recruitment cases – sometimes, these outsourcing personnel didn’t even know they were writing for fraud. More importantly, among the victims she contacted, some people found jobs on regular job – seeking websites like “58 Tongcheng” and finally realized they were deceived.
The Growingly Arrogant Parks
In addition to the ever – changing fraud tricks, the parks become more and more arrogant each time they move – similar to their development history.
In the early 1990s, the telecom fraud industry emerged in Taiwan and later spread to Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China. But since the two sides of the Taiwan Strait signed an agreement to jointly combat it in 2009, the fraud bases moved to Southeast Asia. At that time, the Philippines and Cambodia issued gambling licenses, providing a hotbed for online gambling fraud.
According to the on – the – spot research by Ivan Franceschini, a lecturer in contemporary Chinese studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Li Ling, etc., starting from the mid – 2010s, fraud companies that originally operated only in residential units or hotels gathered together, shared facilities, and formed the current “park” model.
In 2019, Cambodia issued a “gambling ban,” and the fraud group had to move again. In the same year, Myanmar introduced the “Gambling Law,” allowing foreigners to open casinos, which provided convenience for the fraud industry. So the groups gradually concentrated in three areas in Myanmar: Laogai in northern Myanmar controlled by the four major families, Tachileik in the Golden Triangle region, and Myawaddy in eastern Myanmar where the KK Park is located.
In recent years, the Chinese police have been constantly cracking down on fraud in northern Myanmar. By 2023, the leaders of the “four major families” were successfully arrested. In November this year, the Ministry of Public Security of China announced that all large – scale parks in the area near northern Myanmar had been eradicated. However, it also stated that fraud – related personnel had moved south to areas such as Myawaddy.
Jennifer Wang, an advisor to the Global Anti – Scam Organization (GASO), described the movement of the industry as “musical chairs.” “If it doesn’t work here today, I’ll go to Cambodia. If Cambodia doesn’t work, I’ll go to the Philippines. It’s the same group engaging in fraud back and forth, and the structure is exactly the same.”
She pointed out that the operation of the park is entirely the responsibility of the property management company. When it comes to moving, the fraud group “just moves people.”
The unstable situation in Myanmar in recent years has also made the group become more unscrupulous.
In 2021, after the military coup in Myanmar, armed resistance emerged in large numbers, and the power of the military government couldn’t suppress them. In September 2022, the military government only controlled less than a quarter of the 330 townships in the country.
Many parks have armed protection. Take Myawaddy where Wang Xing was located as an example. It is located in Kayin State in southeastern Myanmar, occupied by the Border Guard Force (BGF). It is difficult for the official to approach. “Anyway, no one cares about what I do, so I will definitely become more and more arrogant,” Jennifer said.
On the 23rd day in the courtyard, Xu Bochun was finally selected. He was taken to the “Honglian Hotel” in Kokang Laogai. According to the photos he provided, the appearance of the hotel was no different from the old hotels in other small – county towns in the mainland. But looking from the outside, each window was equipped with a very dense anti – theft iron window.
Xu Bochun remembered that the hotel had seven floors, with two fraud teams on each floor, each with 100 people, “basically all Chinese”; there were also 20 – 30 Burmese people guarding with guns. The working hours were from 10:30 am to 2:00 am. Each person would receive a computer and four iPhones, and keep 20 accounts chatting with people on Instagram to deceive them into investing in Tether (USDT).
There were two meals a day, mainly noodles. One day during the meal, he heard the team leader say to the boss, “Don’t always serve them the seaweed soup from your Fujian.” This made him confirm that the boss was from Fujian.
But he soon lost his appetite. After the first – week adaptation period, those who still couldn’t achieve performance were punished physically every day after work. The ways of torturing people were different in each team. “My team liked to beat from the buttocks down with a stick, while the team next to me liked to burn with cigarette butts.”
Xie Yuepeng also suffered physical punishment in Myawaddy. When he first arrived at the park, the person in charge asked him to contact his family to pay a ransom of $30,000. Then he was locked in a small dark room and beaten with fists or sticks for five days. After being released, Xie Yuepeng secretly used a computer to ask his family for help but failed. When he was discovered, he was taken to a military base for further physical punishment.
He was stripped to the waist, handcuffed to a horizontal bar and exposed to the sun for 3 hours every day. “Bleeding and skin peeling, and they won’t give you medicine.” Facing the humiliation and torture, he thought about suicide. But when he thought that his organs might be sold after death, “it felt like it would be too cheap for them.” Xie Yuepeng began to actively find ways to escape.
The Dilemma of Rescuing People from the Parks
In Xu Bochun’s park, there was at least one opportunity to “report safety” every month.
In August, Xu Bochun finally got to use the phone and chatted with his friends under constant surveillance. He contacted a friend who grew up with him and kept talking about his deceased father, hoping that his friend could notice something unusual. He also sent the address where he was to his friend and then deleted the record.
On September 29th, the Mid – Autumn Festival, Xu Bochun contacted his friend again, but his friend said, “It’s very difficult to save you… It’s difficult for the police in the mainland to obtain evidence, and cross – border communication is also very difficult.”
After finding that their family members were missing, the police are always the first ones the public think of for help, but they often run into a wall here – “not filing a case.” After the Wang Xing incident, someone sorted out a document called “Star Homecoming Plan” on the Internet for people to fill in victim information. As of the time of writing, the document recorded more than 1,700 cases, and nearly half of them said that the police “did not file a case.”
“For adults, the filing rate is actually quite low. It’s not that they will file a case just because you report it,” Li Ling said. Evidence is very important to the police. “Only when you know who sold you, and your pictures show that you have been detained or subjected to violence, can you be registered as a victim of ‘illegal detention’.”
In 2023, after receiving a call from the police station, Miss Guo from Yunnan’s family learned that her 17 – year – old brother was in Wa State, Myanmar. She first reported the case to the local police station where her household registration was located, and then called the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar and the Consulate – General in Mandalay. But in the end, there was no follow – up.
For the past four years, Jennifer has been involved in rescue work. She said that due to administrative and diplomatic issues, the process generally progresses very slowly.
The official rescue channel is probably like this: after filing a case, the local county – level public security department has to report the case to the provincial department, the provincial department then reports it to Beijing, Beijing reports it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs then transfers it to the embassy, and then sends an official letter to urge the local police to handle the case. “If it goes this far, it will take at least several months,” Jennifer said.
Anxious family members have to turn to private rescue teams to “fish out” their relatives from the park.
Almost every day, Jennifer receives requests for help from Myawaddy. But she frankly said that she is not very willing to take on cases in Myanmar. “If you don’t pay the ransom, you can’t get out.”
As a non – governmental rescue organization, Jennifer insists on not paying the ransom. She thinks it’s an endless thing. “Today, if you get five people out of Myanmar by paying the ransom, on the same day, they may deceive more than ten people in somewhere else. This kind of thing can never be completely resolved.”
On Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Kuaishou, Miss Guo has seen many private rescue teams. She joined some groups and found that the number of deceived people was huge, with the largest group having more than 400 people. She also inquired about the prices: it costs 200,000 to 300,000 yuan in Bangkang, Wa State, and 400,000 yuan is the norm in Laogai.
Ah Mei (a pseudonym), a Hong Konger, had her family member go missing in August 2024. After reporting the case, she received a quotation from the park contact, saying that a ransom of $500,000 (about HK$4 million) was required. Ah Mei said she couldn’t afford it, and the other party replied “there is no way” and she had to “go to work with peace of mind.” Like Miss Guo, Ah Mei also sent an email to the Chinese Embassy in Thailand, but received a reply that the incident occurred in Myanmar and could not be handled.
In addition to not paying the ransom and the lack of official follow – up, Jennifer has another method. “That is to make your news big, hoping that Thailand can help you.”
After Wang Xing went missing, his girlfriend posted a help – seeking post on Weibo, which was reposted and noticed by well – known actors. On the fourth day of Wang Xing’s disappearance, the Thai police said they had successfully found him. Jennifer thought the netizens’ speculation was reasonable. “I think it was really just a phone call.”
In fact, although Thailand has no jurisdiction over Myanmar, the two countries have always had close relations. Currently, many victims cross from the Thai border town of Mae Sot to Myawaddy. Thailand also has a certain responsibility for the incident. Thailand also controls some of Myanmar’s resources. For example, the electricity in Myawaddy is provided by Thailand.
Li Ling said, “We’ve always been joking that as long as Thailand dares to cut off the electricity in Myawaddy, they can’t work.”
Indeed, whether it is the Hong Kong government or Taiwan, they have sought Thailand’s help in the rescue – Xie Yuepeng finally found an opportunity to send the IP address of his computer to the Taiwan police. Later, he was informed that someone had paid a ransom of $30,000, and he successfully returned to Taiwan on January 14th.
During the process, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Thailand, the immigration officers stationed in Thailand, and the Tourism Police Bureau of Thailand assisted. But up to now, Xie Yuepeng doesn’t know who paid the ransom for him.
Victims: Fraudsters or Human Trafficking Victims?
Miss Guo finally found a trustworthy person through the introduction of a family member and spent 270,000 yuan to get her brother out.
Like Jennifer, she also doesn’t think her brother was “rescued.” “It can only be regarded as a transaction of people and money,” and she believes that this kind of rescuing is also part of the industrial chain. But at that time, “(the ransom) was indeed the only means.”
Did the Chinese government not play a role in the rescue? Li Ling said it’s not entirely true. She mentioned that in the past, when facing under – age victims, China also quickly arrested the human traffickers in the country. “The procedures on the Chinese side are complete.” In 2024, there were also minors trapped in Cambodia. Li Ling said that someone went directly to the local area with police certificates, hoping to take the victims home.
So why does China seem to handle other cases passively? Li Ling believes that ultimately, it is China’s lack of attention to human trafficking cases.
At present, there is no “human trafficking” crime in the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, only the crime of “trafficking in women and children.” “It excludes the trafficking of men from this law,” Li Ling said. Most of the victims in the park are male, but the Chinese mainland is reluctant to use the word “trafficking,” and it is naturally difficult for the people handling the cases to follow up.
Another main reason is that China “thinks they are criminals, all involved in fraud.” She said, “If this opening (human trafficking) is made, everyone will say they are victims of human trafficking, and then the pressure on the police to handle such cases will increase.”
But Li Ling constantly emphasized that it is very important to determine the identity of human trafficking victims. She mentioned that Thailand currently has a victim identification mechanism, which combines the cooperation of multi – professional teams (MDT) to assess whether the victim meets the definition of human trafficking – Wang Xing was recognized as a human trafficking victim by the Thai police.
Li Ling pointed out that victims of human trafficking will receive official certification documents, which not only reduces the probability of being tried after returning to the country but also enables them to obtain various resources and help from non – governmental organizations.
More importantly, only by entering this identification process can professional teams obtain more evidence during the interview, which is helpful for the investigation of the entire industry. “We need to know the latest trends and what is really going on inside the park.”
However, Xu Bochun was also punished as a law – breaker. There are also cases where telecom fraud victims have become fraudsters, which is lamentable and also makes the rescue operation more complicated.
After the Wang Xing Incident
After Wang Xing returned home, a domestic victim’s family member created an electronic document for the relatives of missing persons to fill in. But in less than a day, the document was flooded with a large amount of malicious information, and finally, the document was taken offline within five days. Some overseas Chinese then started to create a backup on the Internet.
The initiator of the backup document, “Teacher Li is not Teacher Li” (online name), told the BBC that from the fact that the police did not file cases for the family members, the document was taken offline, and Weibo prohibited comments, it can be clearly seen that the official is deliberately cooling down the incident. The backup document hopes to play “a role of pressuring public power.”
The person in charge of the document, Jiang Bu, also said that during the process of helping to fill in the document, he was shocked by the huge number of cases. He was surprised that many cases occurred only in January 2025. “This matter has actually not been resolved at all, and it is still happening continuously.” What made him even sadder was that some of the parties had been missing for seven or eight years at the longest. “They may have encountered some misfortune and can no longer contact their families.”
In October 2023, after the family paid 620,000 yuan in prepaid cash through the rescue agent, Xu Bochun finally saw the sun for the first time. He was taken to the Qingshuihe Port on the China – Myanmar border, where the family was asked to pay an additional 200,000 yuan before he could be released. After returning to China, because he did not have identity documents, Xu Bochun was regarded as an illegal immigrant and was detained by the police for ten days and fined 2,000 yuan.
Until today, he has not been recognized as a victim of human trafficking.
As for Xie Yuepeng, he was rescued after being trapped for 20 days. He himself was puzzled by the short time. “I’m not an important person in the country, just an ordinary person.”
After returning to Taiwan, he watched the movie “No More Bets” at a friend’s house. But before the movie was over, he started to break down and cry, “crying and shaking at the same time.” The things that happened a month ago were still vivid in his mind, and the scars from the beatings in the park were still clearly visible.
The telecom network fraud that had faded from the public’s sight was exposed again. There was a refund wave of Thai air tickets on the Chinese mainland, which also indirectly led to Hong Kong star Eason Chan canceling his concert in Thailand. For Jennifer, who works in a rescue organization, this is a “happy thing.” “Thailand makes money through the tourism industry. If you make such a stir, Thailand will definitely take action (to crack down), but we don’t know to what extent.”
Li Ling also asked some familiar police officers. They said that currently, the Ministry of Public Security of China has also issued a document “attaching great importance” to this issue. In the future, the possibility of victims having their cases filed will be higher. “It may still be in the name of ‘illegal detention,’ but they will definitely accept it.” On January 22nd, senior officials from China, Myanmar, and Thailand held a special meeting and said that they “reached a positive consensus” on jointly eradicating the telecom fraud dens in Myawaddy.
In Hong Kong, the government has also accelerated its actions. As of early January this year, 12 Hong Kong people were still being detained in Southeast Asia. On January 12th, the Security Bureau led a special team to Thailand to follow up, and two people have been rescued so far.
However, Ah Mei is still waiting. Half a year has passed, and she has only been in contact with her family member three times: the first time was for help, on her family member’s birthday, and on New Year’s Day, January 1st.
Ah Mei said that when the incident first happened, she often had nightmares, dreaming that her family member came back, “but was already dead.” Seeing the government accelerate its actions, she is confident that her family member can come back, but there is still no definite time. She has prepared for the worst early: “If one day I know he is dead, it will be just a momentary thing, but now (the waiting) is a long struggle.”
