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Shwe Kokko is accused of being a city built on scams
- redeux 2y agoI thought they were talking about Las Vegas until I read the article. I wonder if that was the intention when they titled the article.
- rsynnott 2y agoIt describes, to a greater or lesser extent, a lot of places, but this one is certainly a particularly extreme example.
- CodeCompost 2y agoYep. I fell for clickbait, again.
- willbw 2y agoI think you might be imposing an America-centric view on the BBC. I doubt that was the intention.
- redeux 2y agoThat’s fair, which is why I questioned whether that was the case rather than outright making the claim. You’re probably right.
- lupusreal 2y agoIt does describe Las Vegas perfectly, and I sincerely doubt your first thought after reading that headline was "its a British publication, so of course they mean that city in Myanmar."
- Muromec 2y agoI did, because I also followed the Chinese actor kidnapping story from the Thai publications and know about the magical place across the river and it's history. South East Asia is historically fascinating. It's worth reading Burman diaries to put later writings of Orwell into some context.
- seivan 2y ago[dead]
- GuB-42 2y agoI am not British, I am French, and when I think about a city with casinos, that's definitely Las Vegas, and I think that it would be even more true for the British, who have more ties to the US than the French. And yes, more Las Vegas than Monaco, even though it is a 2 hour drive from where I live. Monaco is not famous for casinos (plural), it is famous for one particular casino, that is the Monte-Carlo casino. And if they specified Asia, Macao would have popped up in my mind. As for the "fraud" part, casinos and fraud go well together, at least in popular culture. Which is a bit ironic considering that apparently, the scam businesses took over as casinos closed down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- alephnerd 2y ago> And if they specified Asia, Macao would have popped up in my mind The Xi Admin cracked down on Macau around the 2016-18 period as part of the larger crackdown. It was during this time that most of the gambling (in reality money laundering) operations moved abroad to Phillipines, Cambodia, Myanmar, etc.
- selimthegrim 2y agoKoh Kong also comes to mind.
- pjc50 2y agoLas Vegas is not the only city with casinos.
- lmm 2y agoNo, but it's probably the most famous (at worst, second behind Monte Carlo).
- Reason077 2y agoMonte Carlo isn't a city. It's a casino named after the Monaco neighbourhood where it's located: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_Casino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_Casino
- lmm 2y agoIt's the same kind of administrative division as Monaco City. It's where the Grand Prix is announced as being held. Las Vegas is also legally a subset of the metropolitan area that it's part of. Americans do call the thing that Las Vegas is a "city" and do not call the thing that Monte Carlo is a "city", but this seems more like a translation artifact than any real difference.
- rsynnott 2y agoMonte Carlo has a population of 3,500 people and is entirely contiguous with the rest of Monaco-the-city. I'm not sure anyone would consider it a city in itself.
- lmm 2y agoShrug. Within a factor of 3 or so of the City of London. I'm sure there are other examples. Administrative districts are weird.
- snakeyjake 2y agoLas Vegas is an insignificant mote of dust compared to Macau when it comes to Casinos and gambling.
- cjrp 2y agoInteresting, my first thought was Macao
- snakeyjake 2y ago>Jonathan Head >South East Asia correspondent >Reporting from Shwe Kokko, Myanmar Before the article even started.
- commandersaki 2y agoAren't these spots popular for running pig butchering scams? I don't know why BBC article didn't explicitly say this.
- gpvos 2y agoTIL something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_butchering_scam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_butchering_scam (I knew about the concept, just hadn't encountered the name.)
- rob74 2y agoWell, they do say it, however they use a lot more words to do it: > We were able to speak to a young woman who had been working in one of the scam centres a couple of weeks before our visit. She had not enjoyed it and been allowed to leave. Her job, she said, was as part of the modelling team, made up mostly of attractive young women, who contact potential victims and try to build an intimate online relationship with them. "The target is the elderly," she said. "You start a conversation like 'oh you look just like one of my friends'. Once you make friends you encourage them by sending pictures of yourself, sometimes wearing your night clothes." Then, she explains, the conversation moves to get-rich-quick schemes, such as crypto investments, with the women claiming that's how they made a lot of money. "When they feel close to you, you pass them on to the chatting section," she says. "The chatting people will continue messaging with the client, persuading them to buy shares in the crypto company."
- walrus01 2y agoPig butchering among many other variations, like sextortion, fake FBI agent, advance fee fraud, fake real estate rental fraud, there's a whole myriad in their playbook.
- rsynnott 2y agoMost people aren't familiar with the term, so it'll just be confusing. They do describe such a scam.
- rhymeswithjazz 2y agoI can't remember if it was specifically about Shwe Kokko but Search Engine did an episode about a city with compounds like these. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-...
- rsynnott 2y agoYou know those quasi-libertarian dreams of independent privately-owned city-states? Yeah, doesn't seem like such a good idea now, does it? (I'm kind of surprised none of those crypto-libertarian groups have tried Myanmar, actually; it is, at least at the moment, particularly vulnerable to this sort of thing.)
- Muromec 2y agoDoes anybody dream of living in one or just dreams of owning the one? I fail to see the upside of living in somebody's pocket soviet union when places like Singapure actually exist.
- lupusreal 2y agoSingapore certainly isn't for me, but I don't think you can call it unpopular by any means.
- thfuran 2y agoI wouldn't call it libertarian either.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rsynnott 2y agoSome weirder libertarians do indeed seem to dream of living in one. > I fail to see the upside of living in somebody's pocket soviet union The sort of extreme libertarians who are keen on this sort of thing don't acknowledge that it would be like that, though; in their worldview, without a government, (only, effectively, an _owner_), all would be well. Now, this may sound suspiciously like warlordism or feudalism to some of us, but we're not the ones who want to live in these sorts of places. Singapore's completely different; it's rather authoritarian, but is generally a functioning state with strict regulation.
- misja111 2y agoLibertarians would answer that in a True Libertarian World, gambling would be legal everywhere: so gamblers would have a rich choice between casino's and wouldn't have to resort to shady casino's with bad reputations, as they do now.
- amiga386 2y agoOn a related note, POGOs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_offshore_gaming_operator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_offshore_gaming_ope... The Philippines (under Duterte) said to Chinese criminals: Feel free to base your operations here and rip off your fellow Chinese, but don't rip off us Filipinos. Then these POGO centres started scamming locals and Chinese alike, and staffed themselves with scam victims, using blackmail and torture to force them to work there and commit fraud. Then one victim escaped: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68562643 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68562643 And then the whole world unraveled for local town mayor and Chinese spy, Alice Guo (that's not even her real name) https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/04/asia/philippines-alice-guo-fugitive-arrested-intl-hnk/ https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/04/asia/philippines-alice-gu... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mnyrm8739o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mnyrm8739o
- misantroop 2y agoPhilippines is corrupt to the core as well, from courts to police to civilians. So the real reason why POGOs were thrown out of the country was that the didn't pay off the right people. Nothing gets done in Philippines without bribes.
- lawgimenez 2y agoI live here my whole life for over 40 years, anecdotal I know, but I have only encountered one corrupt scenario in my lifetime. Nothing gets done is just too dramatic.
- misantroop 2y agoCorrect, I should have specified it applies to more significant events. Simple paperwork is typically not an issue. Lived there for 10 years and was amazed at how even relatively small cases aren't handled honestly. For example when my vehicle was hit, the police registers the crash and and the driver afterwards flees, the courts determined that they cannot say who was driving. Absurd in any civilised country as then the vehicle owner is responsible or at least interviewed. This is my personal experience, one of quite a few, not hearsay. I also had friends dealing with legal for multinationals, for things to work you needed to know the right people or pay the right people. Otherwise your licenses and approvals would mysteriously simply never be processed.
- yakkomajuri 2y agoThe Chinese investment into strategic spots around the South China Sea & Gulf of Thailand is really interesting to witness. I was at Sihanoukville (Cambodia) around 5 years ago and was surprised to find what was seemingly a Chinese city. There was a lot of dust, construction, and the city seemed like it was being raised out of the ground really quickly. Massive Chinese casinos and hotels were around and locals reported some casinos didn't even let them in. There were some whispers about shady stuff too. I suppose if I were to go there today I'd find there are no more dirt roads and that the city is "fully built" given the rate at which these things happen. Would be cool to see.
- Muromec 2y agoAre they still planning the high speed rail that they were planning ten years ago?
- FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago90% of the businesses are Chinese owned and the city is a hub for crime and gambling https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/03/31/the-forbidden-cities-of-chinese-organized-crime-in-sihanoukville-cambodia_5979499_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/03/31/t...
- feverzsj 2y agoIt's not just some scams. It's the darkest thing ever in the whole human history. After China banned using of death row organs around 2014, the world's largest organ black market has moved to southeast Asia. There are estimated more than 100k victims (mostly Chinese) annually. Some of them may be released, if their families can afford the ransom. The remaining victims are treated like livestock. They are forced into doing scams to lure more people. Their blood is drawn monthly or even weekly for sales. They'll be tortured to death, if they try to run away. And finally, their organs will be harvested and sold, which most likely will also be the end of their lives. United States once proposed to classify these organizations as terrorist organizations at UN but was denied by China.
- k8sToGo 2y agoAre you sure you didn't just describe RimWorld? Someone doing that in real life is truly disturbing
- bandrami 2y agoRemember that the universally recognized setting for a grim cyberpunk dystopia is not a theoretical prediction but a memory of an actual city just north of Hong Kong that was demolished 30 years ago
- thenthenthen 2y agoWhich city? Are you talking about Kowloon Walled city?
- bandrami 2y agoI am. The memory of it somehow became the universally-accepted built environment of the future.
- tim333 2y agoIt wasn't that bad. I wandered in a bit. Crowded but none of the evil stuff mentioned above. I tend to think of cyberpunk as more Blade Runner which is kind of spread out with room for flying cars.
- pityJuke 2y agoInteresting timing to post this, as the US stops funding efforts against human trafficking here [1]. [1]: https://www.wired.com/story/usaid-collapse-is-helping-criminal-scammers-enslave-people/ https://www.wired.com/story/usaid-collapse-is-helping-crimin...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- v3ss0n 2y agoIt depends on who US AID is sending Aids to. If they are sent to Junta , those goes into buying bombs to kill civilians. Miltiary Junta are part of the scam gangs. If it i send to KNU , it is the same , they will goes into pockets. KNU and Junta both of them have shares. Only way if they want to stop those shwe koko is by sending arms to Revolutin forces which never had happened. And US aids in Myanmar along with several NGO are as corrupted as hell. I once developed an APP for USAids and charge really cheap , but then they ask me to sign an invoice with 20x amount - which is going to charge back to US Tax Payers money.
- expat_anon 2y agoI've spent a good amount of time in Myanmar. In practice, the US prioritizes "stability" over everything. The situation became very bad in the last 4 years. Definitely a good amount of this funding was diverted to corrupt people over there. People in Myanmar (and many other parts of the world) love talking to our embassies and "NGOs" and ripping them off, while doing their actual deals with China.
- Hnrobert42 2y agoInteresting article, but the blinking read watch button in the header made it unreadable for me. Maybe because I am on FF Focus on mobile.
- Atatator 2y ago[flagged]
- r721 2y agoNYT article on the topic: >7 Months Inside an Online Scam Labor Camp https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/myanmar-cyber-scam.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/my... Twitter/X thread: https://x.com/QianIsabelle/status/1736391727387177267 https://x.com/QianIsabelle/status/1736391727387177267
- dncornholio 2y agoYou should watch Mike Okay's video on YouTube, he visited this place very recently and it's was super surreal to watch.
- awongh 2y agoI think you mean this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx1SIEwwZrU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx1SIEwwZrU
- v3ss0n 2y agoI am from Myanmar and Shwe KoKo is the biggest scam hub of the world . Not just online scam they are operating all kind of illegal activities.Myanmar Junta is also part of that and china bordering Laukkai. Laukkai is now liberated and scammers arrested as revolution forces won. Shwe KoKo is last one to be eliminated . They advertise recruitment ads of 8000$ a month for working in IT so many youth went there , and forced to end up as sex slaves , scammers , sex cammers . Who refuse to work and try run away are organ harvested or trafficked to china. They are very dark crime gang not limited to - Human Trafficking. - Organ Harvesting. - Dark Web activities. - Drug and Women abuses. The BGF Militia of Saw Chit Thu is working with scammers they have arm forces of 8000 handing that. In April 2023, Joint Revolution forces led by KTLA Lion Battalion : Saw Eh Say Wah launched an offensive against the Kayin State BGF in Shwe Kokko l . They almost captured Shwe KoKo and BGF (Saw Chit Thu) ran away to Thailand. But during the fight one sact of KNU (biggest rebel forces in Karen area who suppose to be helping KTLA ,but leaders also owns shares in Shwe KoKo ) betrayed KTLA forces and backstabbed Saw Eh Say Wah and KTLA Revolution forces. He barely escaped and estimated 200 of KTLA perished. Now China is pushing Thailand to shut down Shwe KoKo and elecriticy is now cut off. They are moving operartion more inside of Myanmar.
- alephnerd 2y ago> The BGF Militia of Saw Chit Thu They used to be militants against the Central Government right? Didn't they split off from the KNU originally? > They are moving operartion more inside of Myanmar As in deeper within periphery regions or actually within the "core" like Yangon/Bago/Irrawaddy/Magwe? On that note, has a similar rise in transnational organized crime started in those regions as well? ----------- I really hope the situation gets better in Myanmar. From the outside, it looked like there was some hope barely decade ago that stuff might get better
- v3ss0n 2y agoOnly way to get better for us is to get rid of junta. Now they are kidnapping both boy and girls above age of 18 to use as Cannon fodder at Frontline and also increased in missing children and body of kids end up with organ missing even inside Yangon. Girls are getting Human trafficked by both military and scam gangs too. I had managed to move most of my employees outside of Myanmar but still our future aren't safe. Latest news I heard is scam gangs are moving inner karen are, around phayar thone su.
- api 2y agoFor those who don't know -- Boca Raton, Florida is well known in the US as a major center of scams and borderline-scams like MLMs. Utah has a history of being a home for this stuff too, as well as a lot of quack supplement companies and self-help nonsense. Just pointing this out so we don't think this doesn't exist here.
- smcin 2y agoWhy Boca Raton in particular?
- intuitionist 2y agoThere are a lot of wealthy retirees in South Florida who make great marks. Beyond that it’s probably to some extent driven by talent agglomeration effects; if you’re someone who makes their money promoting scammy penny stocks, you might want to learn from other people who promote scammy penny stocks, so if they’re in Boca, you’ll go to Boca. Coincidentally(?) Boca Raton was founded by the Mizner brothers, Addison and Wilson; Wilson Mizner was himself a notorious con man.
- gs17 2y agoYou also might be in the category of "those who don't know". The scammers here are absolutely nothing even remotely comparable to MLMs. Most MLMs are questionable, but AFAIK Herbalife isn't kidnapping people in Canada to keep as sales-slaves in Florida, and MLMs might try to ruin you financially if you attempt to leave, but they usually don't torture you to death. See the case of a Chinese celebrity kidnapped in Thailand and brought to Myanmar, who managed to get rescued largely due to being famous enough: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd606l1407no https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd606l1407no Yes, there likely are things like that which do happen in the US, but it's the exception and not what Boca Raton is built on. The only group holding hundreds of thousands of people against their will to do unpaid labor here is the prison system.
- Murphysharon 2y ago[flagged]
- noradallas66 2y ago[dead]