The Little Red Podcast · Graeme Smith and Louisa Lim

Special Criminal Zones: China’s Pig Butchers Pivot to the West

October 2, 2024·48 min·4 clips

A Thai MP revealed that 17 scam compounds on the Myanmar border are partially owned by Thai military or police figures.

The frame is wider than one border zone. Graeme Smith, flying solo, picks up after earlier episodes on Palau and the Dongmei Zone on the Myanmar-Thai border. The numbers land hard. One victim sits inside an estimated 220,000 people trafficked into forced-labour scam syndicates across mainland Southeast Asia. The victims are not only Chinese. Research cited by the host says nationals of 66 countries have been trafficked to work in these compounds. Jason Tau takes the first pass. He describes Operation 1027 as the moment Myanmar resistance actors saw that China had a serious problem in Myanmar. The accusation is direct. According to the account relayed, the Myanmar military regime gave cover to scam syndicates targeting Chinese nationals. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army claimed roughly $9 billion per year was being stolen from China by those syndicates. Then the map changed. The operation defeated the Myanmar Army's border guard force and sent roughly 45,000 people from scam syndicates back into China. The kingpins mostly got away. Tau says many syndicate heads moved toward the Thai border and used their connections to rebuild. Their audience changed as well. As Chinese police claimed a 30 percent decline in online scams targeting Chinese nationals, the guest says the United States, Europe, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and other places saw sharp growth. By the end, this is not a narrow China-border crime story. It is a cross-border crisis that needs governments, societies, and countries to work together.

As heard by us

A sharp look at how scam syndicates adapted after Operation 1027 and began aiming harder at victims outside China.

The Little Red Podcast follows Chinese online scam syndicates as pressure on the Myanmar-China border pushes more of the business toward the Thai border and victims farther afield.

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Why you'd press play

If you want the map behind pig-butchering scams, start here.

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