Hong Kong task force in Bangkok to free online scam victims
The case of Wang Xing, a Chinese actor kidnapped in Thailand and moved to a centre in Myanmar, has put the spotlight back on the human trafficking of Chinese nationals in Southeast Asia. According to the team of experts who met with Thai representatives, 12 Hongkongers are to be released, but the timing remains unknown.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The Hong Kong government has sent a team of experts to Thailand to gain the release of 12 of its citizens held in online scam farms, somewhere in Southeast Asia.
The task force, which arrived in Bangkok yesterday, said it had received positive feedback from Thai authorities.
“Today, we have had an eager response from the Thai government," said Michael Cheuk Hau-yip, Under Secretary for Security and head of the delegation. “Under their prime minister’s leadership, they have been enforcing relevant work in this aspect,” Cheuk added.
The team, which includes officials from Hong Kong’s Security Bureau, Immigration Department as well as police officers, acknowledged, however, the difficulties of the rescue operation.
Most Hong Kong victims of trafficking are held at sites on the border between Thailand and Myanmar and Myanmar and Laos, areas that are “chaotic and hard to control,” especially due to the civil war that has been raging in Myanmar for almost four years.
The 12 Hongkongers were reportedly imprisoned in the spring of last year, and the timing of their release remains uncertain. Their case is part of 28 requests for help received in recent months by Cheuk Hau-yip’s bureau.
Yesterday, the task force also met with representatives of the Chinese embassy in Thailand. For some time, Chinese authorities have been trying to crack down on human trafficking involving their own citizens.
In 2023, China launched a campaign against online scam farms in Myanmar; in two years, more than 53,000 Chinese nationals suspected of involvement in fraud of various kinds have been arrested.
Hong Kong authorities intervened after Chinese actor Wang Xing was reportedly kidnapped in Thailand. Lured by a fake job offer, he was taken to a slave centre in Myawaddy, a city in Myanmar known as a human trafficking hub.
Some investigations show that such centres are run by the Karen National Army, an ethnic militia operating on the Thai border apparently affiliated with Myanmar’s military junta; however, as noted in several inquiries, such operations are linked to Chinese criminal syndicates.
When Wang Xing's parents and girlfriend alerted the authorities, reports about his disappearance spread quickly on social media and helped solve the case.
Thai immigration authorities tracked down Wang’s whereabouts and sent him home shortly after his release, helped by the fact that he had not yet been moved to other centres.
The case sparked an avalanche of reports on Chinese social media about missing people with the families of other victims saying that they had received phone calls with requests for ransoms as high as 500,000 dollars.
Hong Kong singer Eason Chan Yik-shun recently cancelled gigs in Bangkok stating that Thailand is no longer a safe country for Chinese nationals.
Under Secretary Cheuk, who has led the anti-trafficking team since it was set up in 2022, explained that no one has been abducted in the streets so far. Instead, online scam victims are lured with fake job offers and moved from place to place so that they cannot be tracked down.
According to the organised crime index, Myanmar has ranked first in transnational crime since 2021.
In 2022, 46 Hongkongers were able to send pleas for help to their government after being trafficked in Southeast Asia. Since then, abductions of Hong Kong residents have increased.
The modus operandi is always the same. Victims are contacted on social media or messaging platforms, like Telegram. Once they arrive at their destination, their passports are taken away to prevent them from fleeing, and they are held in slavery, forced to raise money online through various scams.
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17/10/2023 15:12
31/05/2022 14:15
