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The people doing the pig butchering are themselves trafficked and working in horrendous slavery conditions in Cambodia: https://theconversation.com/pig-butcher

by fmajid 2y ago

The people doing the pig butchering are themselves trafficked and working in horrendous slavery conditions in Cambodia: https://theconversation.com/pig-butchering-fraud-the-link-between-modern-slavery-torture-and-online-crime-238135 https://theconversation.com/pig-butchering-fraud-the-link-be... https://restofworld.org/2022/cambodias-scam-mills/ https://restofworld.org/2022/cambodias-scam-mills/

saaspirant 2y ago
I can confirm. Someone I know went there for "job abroad" via an "agent" and then came back after knowing what it truly was. It's common in India
EvanAnderson 2y ago
I stopped trying to mess with them and string them along after I heard about this.
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  There are downsides to engaging and not engaging, but I’m still on team engage and waste time. Once they can’t find any true victims in a reasonable amount of time, the industry will disappear (or automate and remove the torture and amplify the attempts 1000x)
  - inetknght 2y ago
    > Once they can’t find any true victims in a reasonable amount of time, the industry will disappear You're wasting more of your time than theirs. Think of it, you've already got your own answer. This is a whole industry and that implies people that work full time. How much time do you spend on this? Have you spent your whole day optimizing your workflow and answers to get an optimal response? Because they most certainly have.
    - Scoundreller 2y ago
      Finding out how to keep them on the line longer is part of the fun.
      - Ylpertnodi 2y ago
        ...let me pass you to my brother...
      - saghm 2y ago
        That just makes it seem like you're also exploiting the people who are forced into this, only for a different motive than the ones who forced them into it in the first place. Maybe there's a better way to entertain yourself than this?
    - Teever 2y ago
      But the industry has a business model and if the margins are slim enough the model doesn't work and the industry collapses. Think about a drive through that serves three rushes in a day, people driving to work, people on theyr lunch break, and people driving home. If each rush is an hour long how many people would need to DDOS the drive through with frivolous complaints and time wasting bullshit like 'oh let me find my change, just a second... Oops I dropped it sorry, let me get that... Oh I can't open my door can you be a dear and send someone outside to get it?' to completely disrupt the entire rush and therefoe the vital flow of cash? If I spend twenty minutes on the phone with a scammer while I'm doing house chores like washing dishes and folding laundry that's 20 minutes that the scammer isn't making money. If he has a 12 hour shift that's only 36 people to completely eliminate his chance of making any revenue. How many people need to do this to eliminate the profit from this employee?
      - lurk2 2y ago
        I would have thought the chief limitation in an operation like this would be that your profits are (presumably) Pareto distributed, so 80% of profits come from 20% of victims. This would make the operation more like mining Bitcoin than serving lunches. One thing that supports your theory that the margins are slim, however, is that there are crime syndicates kidnapping people to work in these call centers. If the wages didn't represent a significant marginal cost, they wouldn't need to risk attracting international attention by kidnapping people in the first place.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  I used to be somewhat mean to telemarketers, until I learned that some of them are prison laborers - getting paid pennies per hour to work in a prison call center. That already feels morally un-great, and messing with them further no longer felt like something I could justify.
  - pocketarc 2y ago
    I agree, and I feel like that goes for everything in general. It's like people who get mad at customer service people - the customer service person has absolutely nothing to do with the product that's giving you grief. Even the telemarketer, as you point out, doesn't want to be there (or even if they do, they may just be there because they have no better options and need to put food on the table). In life, there are very few situations where being unkind is ever worth it. And even here on HN, I sometimes get the impulse to argue with someone for whatever they said. What I do is I type out my little comment, then close the tab without actually posting it. Some things are better left unsaid, regardless of how satisfying they'd be to say.
    - pavel_lishin 2y ago
      I should have been clearer that I meant the more-obviously illegal telemarketers, which frankly are the only ones left. Having said that, I have no moral problem with keeping them on the line and dragging out a conversation without being rude - every minute they're speaking with me is a minute they're not trying to convince my elderly grandmother to switch her power bill to some fly-by-night shitfarm.
    - psadauskas 2y ago
      One thing that really stuck with me from the show The Good Place. The premise is that getting into heaven is a points-based system. You get points for doing good things, loose them for doing bad things, and when you die, if you have enough points, you go to heaven. Spoilers for season 3 ahead Used to be, for hundreds of years, you'd go visit your mom for her birthday. You'd be walking down the lane and see some wildflowers, so you pick them and bring them to her. +10 points. In modern society, to do the same you'd drive to the florist and buy some flowers, then drive to your mom's. +10 points. But the PE firm that bought the florist laid of 100s of workers, and -10 points for supporting them. And the flowers were picked by underpaid exploited immigrants, -10 points. And you dumped a bunch of CO2 in the air from your drive and gave a newborn asthma, -10 points. The show was saying that because of the choices that modern society and late-stage capitalism force upon us, nobody has gone to heaven for decades.
- tdpvb 2y ago
  What if everyone started responding with aggressive encouragements, "Escape!" "Run from that place," "Murder your overlords, you outnumber them!"
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  I used to be mean to scammers and ask if their mother was ashamed of them etc., but I recently tried another tactic and told them I loved them. It works a lot better. One told me his name and where they were located. It costs me nothing to tell them I love them. Maybe they need to hear it.
  - SkyBelow 2y ago
    The cynic in me is wondering if this is them attempting to swap to another tactic to establish a different relationship with the same end goal.
- derefr 2y ago
  I send them messages written in Khmer asking if they need help. (Most of the victims are not themselves Cambodian and cannot read this. But the messages are not for them; they're to spook their captors.)
  - rawgabbit 2y ago
    The news reports I see said most of the scam centers are in Myanmar run by Chinese gangs. The victims are mostly Chinese, but there are reports of Japanese, Kenyans and many other nationalities being trafficked. They are forced to work 18 hours a day and tasered when they don't meet their quota. Even a famous Chinese actor was tricked and trafficked. https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/14/china/china-actor-thailand-scam-myanmar-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/14/china/china-actor-thailand-sc...
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  There is a video out there where a scammer gets scammed, and his reaction goes from fury to terror. I think it's because he'll be held accountable for the loss, and is likely working in horrible conditions. It's sad because this video was very popular entertainment on YouTube for a while.
asah 2y ago
I suppose it's good news that AI will displace these humans ?
- Henchman21 2y ago
  Removed as my context was incorrect
geodel 2y ago
This is terrible. We must demand better working conditions for these folks.
rfwhyte 2y ago
And all of the scam call centers in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, etc. are run by Chinese gangsters with the tacit support of the CCP. Just like how all the scam call centers across eastern Europe and Russia are run by Russian gangsters with ties to the Kremlin. North Korea is also a big player in the global scam industry with many thousands of scammers operating out of state run call centers in Pyong Yang. One thing that doesn't get discussed enough in the rise of internet scams over the past few decades is how much of the global scamming "Industry" is directly or indirectly state-sponsored.

by fmajid 2y ago

saaspirant 2y ago

I can confirm. Someone I know went there for "job abroad" via an "agent" and then came back after knowing what it truly was. It's common in India

EvanAnderson 2y ago

I stopped trying to mess with them and string them along after I heard about this.

Scoundreller 2y ago
There are downsides to engaging and not engaging, but I’m still on team engage and waste time. Once they can’t find any true victims in a reasonable amount of time, the industry will disappear (or automate and remove the torture and amplify the attempts 1000x)
- inetknght 2y ago
  > Once they can’t find any true victims in a reasonable amount of time, the industry will disappear You're wasting more of your time than theirs. Think of it, you've already got your own answer. This is a whole industry and that implies people that work full time. How much time do you spend on this? Have you spent your whole day optimizing your workflow and answers to get an optimal response? Because they most certainly have.
  - Scoundreller 2y ago
    Finding out how to keep them on the line longer is part of the fun.
    - Ylpertnodi 2y ago
      ...let me pass you to my brother...
    - saghm 2y ago
      That just makes it seem like you're also exploiting the people who are forced into this, only for a different motive than the ones who forced them into it in the first place. Maybe there's a better way to entertain yourself than this?
  - Teever 2y ago
    But the industry has a business model and if the margins are slim enough the model doesn't work and the industry collapses. Think about a drive through that serves three rushes in a day, people driving to work, people on theyr lunch break, and people driving home. If each rush is an hour long how many people would need to DDOS the drive through with frivolous complaints and time wasting bullshit like 'oh let me find my change, just a second... Oops I dropped it sorry, let me get that... Oh I can't open my door can you be a dear and send someone outside to get it?' to completely disrupt the entire rush and therefoe the vital flow of cash? If I spend twenty minutes on the phone with a scammer while I'm doing house chores like washing dishes and folding laundry that's 20 minutes that the scammer isn't making money. If he has a 12 hour shift that's only 36 people to completely eliminate his chance of making any revenue. How many people need to do this to eliminate the profit from this employee?
    - lurk2 2y ago
      I would have thought the chief limitation in an operation like this would be that your profits are (presumably) Pareto distributed, so 80% of profits come from 20% of victims. This would make the operation more like mining Bitcoin than serving lunches. One thing that supports your theory that the margins are slim, however, is that there are crime syndicates kidnapping people to work in these call centers. If the wages didn't represent a significant marginal cost, they wouldn't need to risk attracting international attention by kidnapping people in the first place.
pavel_lishin 2y ago
I used to be somewhat mean to telemarketers, until I learned that some of them are prison laborers - getting paid pennies per hour to work in a prison call center. That already feels morally un-great, and messing with them further no longer felt like something I could justify.
- pocketarc 2y ago
  I agree, and I feel like that goes for everything in general. It's like people who get mad at customer service people - the customer service person has absolutely nothing to do with the product that's giving you grief. Even the telemarketer, as you point out, doesn't want to be there (or even if they do, they may just be there because they have no better options and need to put food on the table). In life, there are very few situations where being unkind is ever worth it. And even here on HN, I sometimes get the impulse to argue with someone for whatever they said. What I do is I type out my little comment, then close the tab without actually posting it. Some things are better left unsaid, regardless of how satisfying they'd be to say.
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    I should have been clearer that I meant the more-obviously illegal telemarketers, which frankly are the only ones left. Having said that, I have no moral problem with keeping them on the line and dragging out a conversation without being rude - every minute they're speaking with me is a minute they're not trying to convince my elderly grandmother to switch her power bill to some fly-by-night shitfarm.
  - psadauskas 2y ago
    One thing that really stuck with me from the show The Good Place. The premise is that getting into heaven is a points-based system. You get points for doing good things, loose them for doing bad things, and when you die, if you have enough points, you go to heaven. Spoilers for season 3 ahead Used to be, for hundreds of years, you'd go visit your mom for her birthday. You'd be walking down the lane and see some wildflowers, so you pick them and bring them to her. +10 points. In modern society, to do the same you'd drive to the florist and buy some flowers, then drive to your mom's. +10 points. But the PE firm that bought the florist laid of 100s of workers, and -10 points for supporting them. And the flowers were picked by underpaid exploited immigrants, -10 points. And you dumped a bunch of CO2 in the air from your drive and gave a newborn asthma, -10 points. The show was saying that because of the choices that modern society and late-stage capitalism force upon us, nobody has gone to heaven for decades.
tdpvb 2y ago
What if everyone started responding with aggressive encouragements, "Escape!" "Run from that place," "Murder your overlords, you outnumber them!"
Mistletoe 2y ago
I used to be mean to scammers and ask if their mother was ashamed of them etc., but I recently tried another tactic and told them I loved them. It works a lot better. One told me his name and where they were located. It costs me nothing to tell them I love them. Maybe they need to hear it.
- SkyBelow 2y ago
  The cynic in me is wondering if this is them attempting to swap to another tactic to establish a different relationship with the same end goal.
derefr 2y ago
I send them messages written in Khmer asking if they need help. (Most of the victims are not themselves Cambodian and cannot read this. But the messages are not for them; they're to spook their captors.)
- rawgabbit 2y ago
  The news reports I see said most of the scam centers are in Myanmar run by Chinese gangs. The victims are mostly Chinese, but there are reports of Japanese, Kenyans and many other nationalities being trafficked. They are forced to work 18 hours a day and tasered when they don't meet their quota. Even a famous Chinese actor was tricked and trafficked. https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/14/china/china-actor-thailand-scam-myanmar-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/14/china/china-actor-thailand-sc...
steve_adams_86 2y ago
There is a video out there where a scammer gets scammed, and his reaction goes from fury to terror. I think it's because he'll be held accountable for the loss, and is likely working in horrible conditions. It's sad because this video was very popular entertainment on YouTube for a while.

asah 2y ago

I suppose it's good news that AI will displace these humans ?

Henchman21 2y ago
Removed as my context was incorrect

geodel 2y ago

This is terrible. We must demand better working conditions for these folks.

rfwhyte 2y ago

And all of the scam call centers in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, etc. are run by Chinese gangsters with the tacit support of the CCP. Just like how all the scam call centers across eastern Europe and Russia are run by Russian gangsters with ties to the Kremlin. North Korea is also a big player in the global scam industry with many thousands of scammers operating out of state run call centers in Pyong Yang. One thing that doesn't get discussed enough in the rise of internet scams over the past few decades is how much of the global scamming "Industry" is directly or indirectly state-sponsored.