It all started verbally. In early 2022, Bridget Motari was feeling bored at a hospitality school in the town of Eldoret in western Kenya. The 22-year-old student had dreams of a better life elsewhere, earning a higher salary than in his home country. A friend told her about a recruitment campaign for customer service jobs in Thailand that paid more than 900 euros a month. She jumped at the chance, even though the recruitment agency “didn’t give me confidence.” Speaking to Le Monde newspaper in Nairobi in May, she said: “This was the worst decision of my life.”
When she arrived in Bangkok in July 2022, she had no job or salary. Instead, she fell into the trap of a Chinese cartel and her life changed forever. She was forcibly taken to Van Pak Leng, Laos, in Bokeo province in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone between Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. There she was isolated in one of the vast centers dedicated to online fraud, which has proliferated in Southeast Asia, a global cybercrime hotspot. I am just one of many Africans who find themselves in this scenario.
According to an estimate by the American Institute of Peace, an American think tank, the number of captives held by these Chinese mafia cartels is as high as 305,000, the majority of whom are Asian. Once a hub for opium trafficking, the area has become a mecca for online extortion during the coronavirus pandemic. Criminal groups linked to the Chinese Triads operate in the region, but Myanmar’s civil war and the collusion of local elites have made it nearly inaccessible.
Screenshot of the motion array video MOTION ARRAY.
Among them is Chinese organized crime figure Wang Kuo-Koi, also known as “Broken Tooth,” and the historic leader of Macau’s Triad 14. Another big name in the cyber fraud world, Cambodian businessman Lee Yong Huat, who served as special economic advisor to former Prime Minister Hun Sen, said: The country has been under US sanctions since September on charges of “human rights violations”. fraud center. ”
seduce men online This thriving industry has a name: pig butchering, and involves “bloating up” victims online and then extracting funds from them via cryptocurrency sites. According to a University of Texas study published in March titled “How do cryptocurrencies finance slavery?”, they are said to have earned about $75 billion (approximately 69 billion euros) since 2020. . The economics of pig slaughter.
Motali was given the task of seducing and scamming men online. Unlike other survivors we spoke to who preferred to testify anonymously for fear of being identified and retaliated against, she would not use her real name to recount her journey. agreed.
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