Wandering Adventure Party

@LukefromDC Your assessment is accurate. Chinese victims have been trafficked and even murdered. One particular case in which an actual celebrity, a Chinese actor was trafficked to Myanmar provoked a lot of outrage in China and demands for accountability. As you imply, I also don't believe Chinese justice would be as robust if the victims were solely Africans.

A kidnapped Chinese actor, a scam gang, and a very public rescue operation

Wang Xing was abducted in Thailand by increasingly bold crime gangs operating in Myanmar, putting an entire tourism industry at risk

the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)

@ohmu been a busy few months! Hope to drop a bombshell later this week...currently crossing ts...wrapping up

@MamaLake I'll be frank with you, I'm not as informed on Meta enabling the coup. I am aware of Meta's role however, in amplifying hate speech and facilitating genocide of the Rohingya in years earlier

@sabrinaweb71 I asked. In Cambodia, apparently authorities at the airport are very likely to follow, stop and question arriving Nigerians, Pakistanis and Ethiopians, because too many people of these nationalities have been trafficking victims. The criminals likely want to avoid certain nationalities to reduce the risk they face of getting followed, spotted and then jailed by Cambodian police on trafficking charges.

@oblomov I asked. In Cambodia, apparently authorities at the airport are very likely to follow and stop arriving Nigerians, Pakistanis and Ethiopians, because too many people of these nationalities have been trafficking victims. The criminals likely want to avoid certain nationalities to reduce the risk they face of getting followed, spotted and then jailed by Cambodian police on trafficking charges.

@VoordeMus well aware. Larry Madowo, great Kenyan journalist at CNN...has produced multiple reports on that topic in recent weeks.

While the degree of suffering differs, this phenomenon causes universal suffering to victims from around the world, from the US to Kenya, from the UK to Uganda.

Hope to share some more of my findings with you in the coming days. If you went through yet another long thread of mine all the way to thisnpoint, thank you your time is appreciated

Story dropped on Sunday. If you're in Canada, the story will be available in tomorrow morning's newspaper.

Yours,
-ZZ.

Africans are being confined and beaten in scam camps in Myanmar

Migrants toil for long hours on social-media platforms, targeting people with crypto and romance scams

The Globe and Mail (www.theglobeandmail.com)

If you're in the western world, learn more about what's behind the spammy, sometimes flirty, text messages from unknown numbers crowding up your Messages app. In Canada, it is very common and receiving daily scam texts isn't unheard of for many people.

If you're in Africa, warn friends and family about the dangers of job offers from Southeast Asia that seem too good to be true. Murders have been reported at these camps. Social media companies will not act or remove posts, so spread the word!

The UN estimates that over 120,000 people have been trafficked to scam camps in Myanmar since 2021, and endured various forms of exploitation and torture. It has become a billion dollar industry, with the scams targeting vulnerable people in Europe and North America.

Thai NGOs meanwhile, bravely coordinate rescues, negotiate with border guards to arrange the transfer of victims back to Thailand. But they are swamped and have limited means.

Here are some samples of AI generated ads used by criminals in Myanmar to prey on desperate, unemployed job seekers across Asia and Africa. "Typing speed" is a giveaway, they want people who can learn preprepared scam scripts with ease. The always pretend the job is in Thailand or Cambodia, knowing that nobody would agree to travel to war-torn Myanmar. The ordeal begins when they are picked up at airports in these countries...then driven into Myanmar. Meta and Telegram are part of the problem.

India, the Philippines and China are prompt to repatriate their nationals. But African states do not do so. As such, Africans are becoming disproportionately targeted by Chinese criminal orgs knowing that little will be done to rescue them.

Africans who escape Myanmar can expect to spend lengthy stints in Thai immigration jail until they get the money for airfare/fines.

The UN itself is low on money, & issued a call last year for some $2.5M to fly home 1,000 survivors.
https://roasiapacific.iom.int/news/iom-urgently-seeks-usd-25-million-repatriate-victims-trafficking-forced-criminality-stranded-along-thai-myanmar-border

The criminals operate in Myanmar, because it's too dangerous for them to do so in China. Last month, 11 Chinese operators of Burmese scam camps were executed in China.

Thailand tries to curb activities, including by shutting off internet to border villages where the scam camps are located.

How have the criminals reconnected to the web in response to this? Via good old Elon Musk. Starlink is among the biggest internet providers to Southeast Asian scamming compounds.

China executes 11 members of Myanmar scam mafia

China executes 11 members of the Ming family that ran scam centres in Myanmar, state media report.

(www.bbc.com)

Chinese scam camp operators in Myanmar have tortured and even murdered victims. But Meseret Mulu, a 27 year old Ethiopian woman, told me that at one point, the criminals brought in fighters from the DKBA (Democratic Karen Benevolent Army), a Burmese militia group allied with the junta...to come in and torture her, by stripping her naked and forcing her to spend hours in searing heat.

Warring factions take a cut to allow Chinese mafia gangs to open camps in their territory.

Since 2021, a coup induced civil war, and the pandemic have created a booming scamming industry based out of Myanmar. Hundreds of scam compounds have since sprouted up, typically along the Burmese-Thai border. They target westerners with cryptocurrency and romance scams. But they are staffed by trafficked people from across Asia and Africa, who travel to Thailand believing they will be hired at well paying tech jobs in Bangkok...before being driven across the border where their ordeal begins.

Hello fediverse friends.

For The Globe and Mail newspaper, I've spent the last four months hearing from survivors of Myanmar's infamous scam compounds. Run by Chinese criminal syndicates with the collaboration of at least one Burmese pro-junta militia, the camps are staffed by trafficking victims, including a growing number of Africans who are beaten, electrocuted and raped if they don't meet scamming targets. They aren't paid for their efforts.

My story is published.

Africans are being confined and beaten in scam camps in Myanmar

Migrants toil for long hours on social-media platforms, targeting people with crypto and romance scams

The Globe and Mail (www.theglobeandmail.com)

French military bases, previously ubiquitous across Francophone Africa...are reduced to a single operational base in the East African state of Djibouti.

This is why the Kenya summit is significant: since 1973, France-Africa summits had always been held in either France, or a francophone country.

East African anglophone Kenya becoming the launchpad of France's new geopolitical approach, means Paris may have accepted that its expulsion from western Africa is permanent.

Macron visits Djibouti, France's last operational base in Africa

As the French army gradually withdraws from the African continent, Macron went to visit the 1,500 troops deployed in the small country, which recently renewed its defense cooperation treaty with Paris.

Le Monde.fr (www.lemonde.fr)

France lengthy history of exploitative relationships with African partners post independence, arming loyalist strongmen, engineering coups further overshadowed by its brutal colonial past...led to growing anti French sentiment across western Africa, and eventually, the withdrawal of French forces from at least six states.

Frexit: Why Ivory Coast is joining African campaign to expel French troops

Ivory Coast is the sixth in a growing list of African nations cutting military ties with former colonial power France.

Al Jazeera (www.aljazeera.com)

Next year, Kenya will host the annual France-Africa summit, which strengthens the bonds between Africa and France. The arrangements were agreed to on the UN sidelines by Presidents Ruto and Macron.

In reality, it highlights France's loss of influence. Forced out of much of Western Africa where hostility towards the former colonial power is heightened, France is now racing to make strategic and geopolitical gains in East African countries like Kenya.

Kenya and France to co-host ‘Africa Forward’ Summit in Nairobi

The summit is set to bring together African and French Heads of State and Government on May11-12 May 2026

The Star (www.the-star.co.ke)