Chinese in crosshairs of 'mushrooming' transnational cybercrime

U.N. says many forced into online scam operations in Myanmar and Cambodia

20231010 Caixin photo 4

Computers that have been confiscated from fraud operations in northern Myanmar. Cybercrime scams have exploded in the region in the last few years.

QIN JIANXING and HAN WEI, Caixin

It was May 25 this year, an otherwise normal day, that Lin Ping received a shocking WeChat message from her 19-year-old son, Xiaowei, saying he and a friend had been "tricked and sold to Myanmar," pleading for her to seek help from the Chinese police.

In the frantic messages that followed, Xiaowei said he had been lured by the promise of a job transporting raw jade stones in Xishuangbanna, in southwest China's Yunnan province, Lin told Caixin.

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