Author: lukewarm source: official account: lukewarm studio has been authorized to reprint
In the second half of 2018, Xiaoluo, an 18-year-old Fujianese who had just graduated from high school, was introduced by his classmates and planned to find a job in northern Myanmar.
He decided to go to North Myanmar because his classmate’s brother was a supervisor there. It was said that he had made a lot of money. Xiao Luo decided to try his luck.
He arrived in Kunming by plane via Xiamen. After landing, local people were responsible for picking him up and driving him to Lancang County. There was a border river with very shallow water. Under the guidance of others, they walked across the river with suitcases in the evening. A bus on the other bank met them and dragged them to Mengping Economic Development Zone, even if they had sneaked into Myanmar.
One late night in September 2022, when Xiao Luo told me about the situation on the phone, he also repeatedly stressed that it was really possible to cross the river on foot. At that time, the control was not strict, and it was much easier than he imagined.
Mengping belongs to Wa State, which belongs to Shan State under the union of Myanmar in name. In fact, it is an independent small kingdom. In northern Myanmar, there are 17 armed forces, large and small, each controlling an area. Everyone is king and not under the jurisdiction of the central government.
Myanmar is a chaotic country. There are 135 ethnic groups in the country, which are divided into seven provinces and seven states. The Burmese people, accounting for 70% of the population, live in seven provinces. The seven states are countless ethnic minorities gathering areas. To put it better, they are called states. In fact, there are all warlords holding guns and guarding their own territory. The central government will send people to beat them. There is nothing to do with them.
In order to save face, Myanmar calls these places “a high degree of autonomy”.
Xiao Luo said that he felt very strange when he came to the local area. Although it was clearly Myanmar, everyone spoke Mandarin. The streets were full of Shaxian snacks beef ramen and pot soup, and people also used RMB.
Yes, there are historical reasons why it is so strange.
In 1885, the British completely destroyed the kampong Dynasty of Myanmar, and took Myanmar as their own colony and designated it as a province of India. The British only directly managed the Burmese people. As for the ethnic minorities living in the mountains, the British are too busy. You Tuscan can manage yourself. If you don’t make trouble, I won’t beat you.
During World War II, Japan occupied Myanmar. In order to fight against Japan, Britain forcibly included Kokang and wa States, which belonged to China, into Myanmar. As a result, Chinese and wa language are still spoken in Wa State, and the official language is Chinese.
The history here is very complex and chaotic, but we just need to remember that Kokang is relatively turbulent and Wa is relatively peaceful. These poor mountains and valleys have no money to make, so we have to develop the sewer industry. Both places used to be flooded with pornography, gambling and drugs, but now the drug industry has weakened and gone underground. Huang He gambling has always been very developed.
Xiao Luo said that the place where they work is the local company with a legal gambling license. In addition, the streets are full of casinos and women standing on the street. Most of the women standing on the street are from China. The price is actually twice that of China. The food in restaurants is twice that of China. Everything is expensive.
Ronaldinho’s account verified that northern Myanmar is still an area where pornography and gambling are rampant.
Xiao Luo and his family were arranged to work in a 21 story building. On the first floor, there was a large casino with military guards with guns. On the second floor, there was a canteen. On the third floor, there were offices. Most of them were from Fujian, and a small number were from Jiangxi, Hainan and northeast.
Only later did Xiao Luo know that all the companies here do two things, one is online casino and the other is fraud.
I said that the Chinese were all cheating the Chinese? I always thought that the people of northern Myanmar were cheating the Chinese.
Xiao Luo said that people in northern Myanmar, like the Wa people, are unfamiliar with the Chinese lifestyle, have no common language, and can’t even use Tiktok. Such people can’t cheat money. They can only be waiters and stackers. They are best at cheating Chinese people.
However, the first choice of these online gambling and fraud companies that went to northern Myanmar was not northern Myanmar.
The living conditions in northern Myanmar are too poor. The initial options of these companies are the Philippines, Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia.
These companies did too much in Southeast Asia, which triggered pressure from the Chinese government, and were swept up by local countries. Finally, they found that northern Myanmar was relatively safe, and they involuntarily concentrated in northern Myanmar.
Agriculture, mining, pornography, gambling and drugs have always been the mainstays of northern Myanmar’s economy. A Chinese friend who has lived in northern Myanmar for more than ten years told me that among them, daqili, bangkang, Mengbo, xiaomengla, Kokang Laojie and mengping are the most fierce.
The local warlords will build the park and recruit various technology companies to do business. Of course, the technology park is just a cover. Its main business is online gambling and online fraud. The park will carry out closed management. They only collect taxes and share.
Xiao Luo said that they work from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. every day. The network there is very poor. At first, it was very troublesome to open the web page, and it was impossible to carry out business at all. Later, the supervisor spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a device to enhance the signal, so that they can work normally.
My main business at ordinary times is shishicai and pig killing dish.
Shishicai is a gambling method that draws prizes every ten minutes. They will find gamblers in China everywhere on the Internet to participate in this kind of game. Usually, gamblers are pulled to a wechat group, where dozens of staff play and incite gamblers to place bets.
Most of the gambling headquarters are gathered in xiaomengla, where pornography and gambling are inseparable. This is also the most developed place in the pornographic industry. About 1000 to 2000 young women sell themselves here to live.
The most important main business is still pig slaughtering dishes.
Xiao Luo told me the story of the pig killing dish for more than an hour in detail.
The upstream of this industry is to raise numbers, buy numbers and sell telephone cards, while the downstream is to unblock numbers and launder money. Numbers refer to Tiktok numbers and wechat signals, which need to be purchased from upstream suppliers every other cycle. The unblocking number is to find domestic college students for about 160 yuan at a time.
Each of them will be assigned several Tiktok numbers and wechat. They will fish on Tiktok first, and then transfer to wechat.
At first, they fished gay men and ordinary men, pretended to be gay when they cheated gay men, and pretended to be beautiful women when they cheated men. They talked naked with the man and threatened him. Later, the market was rotten by their peers, and they could not cheat money. They turned to the middle-aged women group, and found that this group was incredibly easy to cheat.
“We were arranged to defraud 30-50-year-old women at that time,” said Luo. “One catch, one catch.”
“Women aged 40-50, in particular, are rich and easy to be cheated.”
The specific method of their operation is that everyone first goes to Tiktok to find a handsome guy number with less attention, downloads all the videos of this handsome guy, and then builds a number himself to upload these videos.
Then use positioning software to locate your number to a certain city in China, such as Wuhan, Nanchang, Changsha, Zhengzhou, etc.
If it is located in Wuhan, women in Wuhan will see their videos when they brush local videos.
Each of them has his own personal design. If they are located in a certain district in Wuhan, they should remember what snacks, restaurants, schools and hospitals are around them, what occupation they play, what income they earn, what cars they have, and how much they buy their houses. In short, this male image should be handsome, rich and progressive. It is better to have been deeply hurt by a previous relationship. They are eager for comfort.
However, you must not say that you are living in the community, but find reasons to say that you are on business in Macao or Guangdong, so as to avoid being asked by women to meet offline.
Of course, it is impossible to wait for women to take the initiative to find them. Everyone has the task of adding ten people every day, and they must take the initiative to attack.
Still take Wuhan as an example. If they see a 30-50-year-old woman trembling audio and video in Wuhan, they will send a private message to flirt with women. The script is generally as follows:
You look like a female guest of if you are the one.
Women are generally curious to answer: like which female guest?
They will say: like my girl.
At this time, women will go to watch the videos of their Tiktok number. Generally, they will look forward to them after watching them. Then they will chat casually and say that they are local. Both sides will add wechat for in-depth chat.
After adding wechat, they will screen the crowd by chatting and browsing the girl’s circle of friends. If they find that the girl has taken the bus, they will be judged as having no money and not worth cheating, and they will stop talking. If they feel that the girl has certain economic strength, they will communicate in depth.
The method is very simple. Keep chatting with the woman, slowly say that you have feelings for her, and then go to the company’s finance department to help her buy breakfast, order takeout, buy fruit, call didi and buy flowers through Alipay. On New Year’s and festivals, you even send red envelopes to the woman. Usually, you talk to her by voice and care for her. Basically, women of this age can hardly run away.
I’m very curious: usually only make voice calls? No video?
Xiao Luo said that generally we will find a reason not to video. In addition, most of these women are not very good-looking, and they are not very willing to video.
Generally, after spending money for the woman three times and judging that the woman has certain financial resources, they start to “kill pigs”.
They will find an opportunity to say that they have found a loophole in a gambling platform and have a way to make money. Then they will find a reason to ask the woman to log on to the platform for him and ask her to help bet. The money will not be paid by the woman, but only operated for him. Before the start, they will also show the woman their bank text message, saying that it is 20000 yuan now, and you can make a bet.
Generally, this kind of gambling game is very simple, that is, to buy large and small singles and pairs, to ensure that the woman can understand them, the woman will doubt that after making a bet, she will definitely win. At this time, the swindler will show her the bank message he received, saying that he made 2000 yuan and thanked her for helping him make money. After that, the woman starts to be excited and continues to bet. Every time he wins, the swindler will take the initiative to send red envelopes to the woman as a thank-you fee.
After gaining the trust of the woman in this way, they will let her recharge into the gambling platform. Generally, if the woman recharges 100000, they will take the initiative to let her win 10000-20000, 200000, 20000-30000, and at this stage, they can ensure that her money can be taken out to gain the final trust.
They will make a financial estimation and deposit limit for the woman, and finally let the woman invest 500000 or 1000000 yuan, deliberately letting the woman earn 20-30% of the principal. But this time, the platform side will say that she is suspected of malicious cheating through the platform loophole, and will not allow her to withdraw cash. If you want to withdraw cash, please pay 50% of the principal as a security deposit first.
That is, if you deposit 1 million yuan, you will be asked to give another 500000 yuan as a security deposit.
Generally, at this time, the woman will fall into chaos and recharge 500000 yuan. At this time, the platform side will ask the girl to continue to pay half of the deposit on the grounds of “inaccurate ID card number”.
Until the woman says “I really don’t have any cash”, the liar who plays the handsome guy will come out and say, “it doesn’t matter if you have no money. I mortgaged my car and my house, and then I will go to the Internet to lend you money.
Here is a key skill. You can’t persuade the woman to mortgage the garage, but you should do a demonstration yourself. If you persuade the woman to mortgage, she will immediately alert the police.
At this time, the swindler will really give the woman a sum of money, such as more than 100000 to 200000 yuan. The woman will be moved to a mess, thinking that she has met the right person to share weal and woe. On a spur of the moment, she will really take her garage to mortgage, and also use the online loan to buy a large amount of money to pay the guarantee.
By this time, the woman has been basically squeezed out. The swindler will delete the woman from wechat, blackmail her, and disappear from the network.
Xiao Luo said that they would have a morning meeting every day, where everyone would exchange and learn the script together. They would also show everyone the recording of their chat with the woman, and the supervisor would take everyone to analyze how to cheat money.
If you cheat one million yuan, the local warlord will get 300000 yuan, the boss will get 250000 yuan, the supervisor and group leader will get 250000 yuan, and the fraud salesman will get 200000 yuan.
Their company specializes in deceiving 30-50-year-old women. In addition to killing pig dishes, another common trick is to engage in Taobao to make money by letting Baoma come over to make money, but Baoma has to pay for the product on their platform. At the beginning, they buy hundreds of small things and give Baoma tens of yuan in return. Later, they are told to brush tens of thousands of large things, and then take the money to run away.
However, this kind of money is not as fast as killing a pig dish. Killing a pig dish can easily generate hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars, which is their most important cash flow.
Ronaldinho worked in it for several months. Because of his poor performance, he returned to China. Later, he could not bear the condemnation of his conscience and took the initiative to throw himself into the case.
I asked him if he had kidney quacking at that time. He said that he had not been so cruel in 2018. He had never seen kidney quacking, but he had seen going to water prison.
A swindler salesman was discovered by the company because he secretly collected money from “customers”. After being beaten, he knelt on the ground from the first floor to the 19th floor, telling everyone at every workstation that he should not embezzle the company’s money, and slapping himself while talking.
After kneeling, he was dragged to the water prison again.
To be in a water prison is to have both hands tied to the prison beam. The whole person is immersed in the stream, and can only breathe with one head exposed. He can’t eat for two days and two nights, and only lives by drinking the river water.
This guy was beaten while he was in prison. He didn’t stop beating until his family sent him money.
“Going to water jail is actually a common method used by the warlords in Myanmar,” the Chinese friend who has lived in northern Myanmar for more than ten years explained to me. “It is usually used to deal with prisoners of war and fugitives, but it was learned and used by fraud companies.”
After Ronaldinho left northern Myanmar, the fraud group in northern Myanmar grew larger and larger.
In addition to other countries expelling these people, another important reason is the epidemic.
After the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the gambling and pornography industries in northern Myanmar were greatly affected. Warlords could not earn money, so they could only obtain cash flow from online fraud.
After 2020, the industry has gradually become ferocious internally.
“There are three main types of salespeople.” A boy named Xiao Tian, who has worked in northern Myanmar for many years, told me about their origins.
“The first kind is introduced by acquaintances, who enter voluntarily, which is relatively free and won’t be beaten;
The second kind is cheated through social networking and recruitment platforms. The recruitment platforms publish false information, saying that as long as they work six hours a day, they can get high salary and serve as customer service for multinational companies. It is easy to attract job seekers. When such people go, they will first receive their mobile ID cards. Every day, they will be brainwashed and taught. If they don’t obey, they will be beaten. If they start, they will be given points;
The third kind is sold in and beaten every day. There is a Chinese who can speak Mandarin and type. The transaction price is 30000-50000 yuan. The second is that if he is not well adjusted, he will also be sold to other companies. If the company he takes over is tough enough, he will still be well adjusted. If he can’t be adjusted, he will contact his family and send videos or photos of his abuse, so that his family can find a way to redeem him. If there is no family, he will crack his waist and kill the organ seller.
I asked Xiaotian how these Chinese people got into northern Myanmar?
Xiaotian’s answer is similar to that of Xiaoluo’s. He said that he came to work in northern Myanmar in 2014. From 2014 to 2020, the border line was as empty as a ghost. He could even take a taxi home after work at 6 or 7 a.m. to have breakfast and then come back. At that time, the fare for the taxi across the border was only 100 yuan, and it took about 20 minutes to walk the mountain road.
When many people were deceived, they did not know that they were going to Myanmar and thought they were in China.
As long as the cheated people reach the border towns of Daluo and Menglian, it is difficult to escape. The illegal immigration fee was only 100 at first, but later increased to 1300 and 3000. After the outbreak of the epidemic, the state strictly investigated the border. Now it needs 60000 to 100000 yuan to sneak into northern Myanmar.
Xiaotian said another piece of information, which corresponds to what we said earlier. He said that before 2020, casinos in northern Myanmar often picked up customers in Kunming. Any casino can provide a one-stop pick-up service after gamblers get off the plane in Kunming.
Xiao Tian works in the night market in northern Myanmar. He said: the four special zones in northern Myanmar are mainly supported by swindlers, and all walks of life are affected by them.
In the night market where he is, he plays in a box for six hours, and the minimum consumption is nearly 10000 yuan. Only those who engage in e-mail fraud can afford to spend it. In the four special zones in northern Myanmar, there are 15 to 20 such high-tech venues in each city, almost every one is full every night. Generally, the team leader brings people with excellent performance to play, and he often sees them taking drugs in the box.
Parks in northern Myanmar are protected by local troops. Small soldiers at the gate of the park usually carry aks on duty 24 hours a day. Guests who come to play often carry pistols, but they will take them away when they enter the box.
Xiao Luo and his colleagues only went in once. The outside was decorated like a glove. The inside was full of Mao germ rooms. There were security guards on each floor. Most people were chatting with computers. The atmosphere was lifeless. When he went to the park to collect money one day, he saw a Chinese man jump from the top floor of the building.
When Xiao Luo talked to me here, he also sent me a photo of local buildings, saying that in northern Myanmar, as long as it is a high-rise building of this style, not a hotel, it must be a fraud den.
When I asked Xiao Luo about his situation in 2018, Xiao Luo said that beating people in northern Myanmar was not very common at that time, but after listening to Xiao Tian’s explanation, after 2020, the beating will become more and more vicious and the attack will become more and more vicious. We often see Chinese people being severely beaten, shocked, kidney gagged, buried alive, and finger chopped in northern Myanmar on the Internet today, all of which are rampant after 2020.
“Because domestic anti fraud efforts are becoming more and more extensive, the success rate of deception is also getting lower and lower.” A Chinese who did not want to be named and knew the industry very well summarized this to me.
“When hungry wolves can’t eat sheep, they start eating themselves.”
On the evening of September 8, 2022, after consulting seven or eight Chinese who went deep into northern Myanmar, I sorted out dozens of pages of notes in my hands and wrote this article.
My heart was suddenly filled with emotion.
Those fraudsters may have problems, but I think Myanmar has problems in essence.
It is Myanmar that can not solve the problem of warlords, resulting in the proliferation of factions. In order to feed the army and make money, warlords dare to take over any money, gambling and drugs, and have no patience to operate their territory. As a result, the rule of law and order can not reach the whole country. That is why there is such a deformed social phenomenon.
Fraud is only one of the distortions of the state. When a country can’t even achieve reunification and there are many military leaders in the country, it certainly can’t bring order to the people and security to the society.
When the country is in chaos, it can only provide the sewage industry to the people, and the country can not get on the right track.
The network fraud in Myanmar is essentially the same as the drug trafficking in Mexico. It is a terrible social tragedy that occurs when a failed country fails to perform its normal government functions.