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African scammers used to be small scale or lone wolf type of operations. You had scammers like Hushpuppi etc who become celebrities John Gotti style. Now the C
by madradavid 2mo ago
African scammers used to be small scale or lone wolf type of operations. You had scammers like Hushpuppi etc who become celebrities John Gotti style.
Now the Chinese have taken over , they are moving from places like Malaysia and setting up these huge scam compounds , they combine the legitimate businesses (construction, import/export) with gambling and these crypto, mobile money and pig butchering scams. This is only going to grow , no one is forced into these things, the youth willing seek work at these places, they are recruited, trained and given the tools they would never afford on their own.
You have Chinese labs setup with Servers, high speed internet, USSD capture machines. Our governments won’t and do not want to do crap, the officials get the bribes , the youth get work and everyone is looking the other way.
So yeah , this is only going to get worse.
- gambiting 2mo ago>>no one is forced into these things, I was with you until then - hasn't it been documented over and over again that at least in some of these places people are basically slaves, they have their passports taken away, kept in a walled compound and not allowed to leave?
- jsunderland323 2mo agoYup, this is usually the case in pig butchering operations iirc.
- UnreachableCode 2mo agoWhat, if I assume we're employing nicknames here, is a pig butchering operation?
- aswegs8 2mo agoSome kind of romance scam. Look it up.
- shevy-java 2mo agoBut what do pigs have to do with any of that?
- pxtail 2mo agoIt's just analogy which is useful to depict process well: pig needs to be fed and taken care of for some time before it's butchered
- wongarsu 2mo agoI'd assume because pigs have to be fattened before slaughter. At the small scale by literally throwing them scraps (pigs eat nearly anything edible). Meanwhile in a pig butchering scam you have emotionally desperate people (who often would go for figurative scraps) being fed fake romance before being slaughtered (having a lot of money extracted from them, which usually ends in the end of the fake relationship as results don't materialize for the victim, e.g. the lover not showing up)
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- joenot443 2mo agoIt’s an English translation of a Chinese phrase. The method began in China before it came to the west. “shā zhū pán (杀猪盘) translates literally to "killing pig plate" or "pig slaughter table”.
- markovs_gun 2mo agoBecause when you buy a live pig, you don't just slaughter and eat it right away, you have to fatten it up over a period of time and then you slaughter it and have a feast. A typical scam is more like fishing, where you catch a fish and then eat it right away. Pig butchering requires a prolonged relationship with the victim to get a higher payout for more work.
- inigyou 2mo agoAny scam where the scammer maintains a long-term relationship with the victim - fattening them up - before suddenly taking all their money. For example a romance scam where the scammer pretends to be your girlfriend who loves you for 6 months and then asks for money to cover an emergency. Or a stock market scam that might even pay out small profits before convincing you to go all in.
- biztos 2mo agoI read it as asserting that unlike in Asia, people do this work willingly. Which I don't actually believe: if you couldn't find qualified people for this work in Cambodia, how are you going to find them in Africa?
- evolighting 2mo agoAccording to some news report """ The global spread of the syndicates’ operations has been driven in part by pressure from authorities in Southeast Asia. A major crackdown on scam centres in Myanmar this year, pushed by Beijing, led to around 7,000 workers from at least two dozen countries being freed. But the UN report warns that while such efforts disrupt the scam gangs’ immediate activities, they have shown themselves able to adapt and relocate swiftly. ‘It spreads like a cancer,’ UNODC’s Hoffman said. ‘Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear, they simply migrate.’ """ These criminals may even belong to the same groups that were targeted by law enforcement in Southeast Asia. they do not actually need to recruit local people. They only need to use advertisements for high-paying “overseas jobs” to attract people with the necessary technical skills and capabilities.
- madradavid 2mo agoWhat I meant is in a lot of these compounds in Africa the “workers” are doing this willingly, it is a Job like a 9-5, these are locals who go there to get trained to do this. In other places like Malaysia, Cambodia most of these people ( usually foreigners) are enticed into these Jobs , they get to these countries with the promise of normal employment and find themselves forced into this. In many of the African countries these are now locals working in Chinese companies, trained by Chinese and protected by corrupt government officials.
- joenot443 2mo agoMy understanding is that while the stories of foreigners being kidnapped to work in a pig butchering compound are much more likely to make international news, the reality on the ground is that the vast majority of people working these scams are not slaves. They are employees in a criminal syndicate.
- clarionbell 2mo agoI won't discount the possibility of someone getting into this of their own free will out of hand. But I seriously doubt that it's going to remain this way long term. We have recent examples from Cambodia and Myanmar after all.
- lenkite 2mo agoChinese criminal syndicates have even begun to conduct lure and abduct Indians into scamming centres. They do this by posting fraudulent online job ads leading Indians to clandestine compounds in the golden triangle nations. And then confiscate passports after they arrive, restrain them and then enslave them using threats of physical torture, electric shocks, and isolation cells. Why do they even bother with India ? Easy manpower and one of the world's largest English speaking nations.
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- jgilias 2mo agoWhy do you call them “labs”?
- inanutshellus 2mo agoA "lab" is a place to experiment and grow. That the subject to experiment and grow with would be "crime" is a reasonable extension of the word, I suppose...
- ransom1538 2mo agoMalaysia prison. Man I would weigh things out.