Is the scam method of "All for One" outdated? Myanmar North Electric Fraud 2.0: Scammers Want "Good English and Fluent Mandarin"

Myanmar, a country with abundant natural and cultural resources, is one of the popular tourist destinations in Southeast Asia. Nowadays, the frequent occurrence of news such as "fraud" and "organ trafficking" in northern Myanmar not only casts a shadow on the local tourism industry, but also makes entries such as "North Myanmar electricity fraud" repeatedly appear on hot searches.

However, Chinese people living in Yangon, Myanmar, told Red Star News reporters that these incidents are only concentrated in specific areas of Myanmar and do not represent the entire country. According to the introduction of "Panda Anti fraud", the WeChat official account operated by the Anti Telecom Network Fraud Center of Sichuan Provincial Public Security Department, most of the fraud groups in northern Myanmar are concentrated in the northeast corner of Myanmar, mainly including Kokang, Wa, Xiaomengla and Tachili in northern Myanmar, which are located in the "Golden Triangle" area.

On August 22nd, the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar announced that the ambassadors of China, Thailand, and Laos held a tripartite meeting to coordinate the fight against gambling fraud.

▲ The ambassadors of China, Thailand, and Laos to Myanmar hold a tripartite meeting

In the interview, the Chinese in Myanmar did not deny that there were indeed "the events portrayed in the movie" All for One "in some local areas. A Chinese person living in the local area said, "The anti fraud propaganda in China is very effective now, and those who used to engage in telecommunications fraud are no longer easy to do. Now, those fraud parks are using high salaries as bait to lure people over, and then controlling them to let their families use money to redeem them." They also mentioned that Chinese students studying abroad have become a new target of fraud, and the emerging telephone fraud has new requirements for "new targets" - "Now they will let people who are very good at foreign languages make phone calls and carry out fraud against international students."

Electronic fraud update 2.0:

Fraud has spawned new models

With the popularization of anti fraud propaganda in our country, the awareness of anti fraud among the domestic public has greatly increased. At the same time, there have been new changes in electricity fraud in northern Myanmar.

Mr. A, a Chinese person who has lived in Myanmar for nearly 10 years and is currently doing business in Myanmar, has participated in rescuing Chinese people trapped in fraud traps in northern Myanmar and has some understanding of the situation of electricity fraud in northern Myanmar. Mr. A told Red Star News reporters, "The current trend is to lure people with high salaries, and then restrict their personal freedom when they arrive, allowing their families to redeem them with money." In addition, he also mentioned that Chinese international students living abroad have become a new target of fraud. "Because international students live abroad and may not have timely access to domestic information, their vigilance towards fraudulent phone calls may not be as high."

Mr. A also mentioned that in response to the changes in the target audience for fraud, the personnel engaged in telecommunications fraud have also changed - "In the past, our impression of telecommunications fraud personnel may have been that they heard the other person speak non-standard Mandarin on the phone, but now they will find people who are very fluent in foreign languages and have a high level of cultural knowledge to engage in telecommunications fraud." Mr. A said, "Think about it, is it more deceptive for an overseas student to receive a phone call and the other person speaks fluent English and standard Mandarin?"

The "deceived" B-side:

Being deceived is both true and voluntary

A police officer who has long been engaged in anti espionage and overseas rescue efforts said in an interview with Red Star News that "the vast majority of people who have been trapped in espionage parks in recent years have voluntarily gone there and come back to say they have been deceived."

Red Star News reporters previously undercover at Baidu Tieba "Go Abroad" and found that there were "a large number of" job seekers "in the Tieba who hoped to be taken abroad to make money. Among them, there were some who knew the risks of the electronic fraud park and still longed to go abroad to make money with a mentality of luck or utilitarianism.".

Mr. A expressed the same view to the Red Star News reporter: "It is not ruled out that some people voluntarily go to northern Myanmar with the idea of 'making big money by doing a lot of work', but they may not know that they will not achieve 'good results' there and will be beaten. After returning, in order to evade legal sanctions, they say they were deceived."

Ms. B, who works as a senior executive at a well-known global hotel chain in Yangon, also holds the same view: "Most people who claim to have been deceived into going to northern Myanmar are actually voluntary."

Mr. A said that currently, the Chinese police have strict and comprehensive safety education and inspections for people traveling to Myanmar. He told a Red Star News reporter about his journey from China to Myanmar last year: when the police in his community learned that he would be flying to Myanmar, they called to conduct safety briefing and verification. Before the plane to Myanmar took off, the police conducted three rounds of screening, "As long as someone enters Myanmar through legal channels, after such strict and meticulous screening, how can they not know what they are going to do?"

Ms. B told Red Star News that her hotel recently received a guest from Fujian, China who went to Myanmar to rescue her childhood friend. "He also saw the child, but the reality was that after losing all his money gambling in China, he went to a fraud park where he became addicted to drugs and continued gambling." She recalled, "In the end, the child didn't want to go back, and the guest had to return home alone."

Myanmar hotel practitioners:

The hotel restaurant cannot recruit a Chinese chef

Ms. B, who works as a senior executive at a well-known global chain hotel in Yangon, told Red Star News that she came to Myanmar from China in 2019 and has been working as a senior management at the hotel.

Ms. B recalled that the hotel opened in January 2019 and "had a good start as soon as it opened. Generally, hotels have a period of 'ramp up', but our occupancy rate reached 60% as soon as we opened, which is a very high figure." She said that at that time, the hotel she worked for had an agreement price of $90 per night for travel agencies and $120 per night for individual guests, but the current price is almost "halved". "Now is the off-season for tourism in Myanmar, and the occupancy rate of the best performing hotels can only reach 40%. We estimate that this data will not increase too much until the peak season."

Currently, in addition to the shrinking customer base in China, recruitment of staff is also a major challenge.

Ms. B told Red Star News that the hotel had previously needed to recruit a management personnel. After industry promotion, she had multiple communications with a suitable candidate and, at their request, filmed many hotel environments and had video calls. "This colleague has been considering for a long time, and I understand their concerns very well, but in the end, they dispelled their concerns and finally recruited her."

When it comes to personnel recruitment, Ms. B expressed a headache. At present, the hotel's Chinese restaurant requires a Chinese chef, "but over the past few months, we have interviewed more than 10 chefs, but no one has come, which would not have happened before."

News highlights:

One person is the gambling fraud leader! Two suspects of wire fraud in Myanmar are being escorted back to their home country

According to the official Wechat of the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar, on the morning of August 23, two suspect of telecommunications fraud were transferred from the Myanmar police to the Chinese police working group at Yangon International Airport and escorted home. This is the second time since six suspect were escorted home in June this year. Both of the above mentioned individuals are suspected of fraud, with one of them being the backbone leader of a gambling fraud gang and a key target in cracking down on espionage crimes. Recently, the police of China, Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos launched a special joint operation to cooperate in cracking down on gambling fraud groups, aiming to severely crack down on telecommunications network fraud and online gambling crimes in the region, and resolutely reverse the high incidence of human trafficking, kidnapping, detention, and other crimes.