1 Magical Northern Myanmar
Northern Myanmar is another name for the northern region of Myanmar, a federal country with 7 provinces, 7 states and 2 centrally administered cities. Among them, the Shan State in the northeast is the largest and most populous state in the Union of Myanmar. It covers an area of 155,800 square kilometers and has a population of about 6.3 million, 60% of which are Shan State.
For various reasons, Shan State has a deep conflict with the Burmese government. In 1993, Shan State also declared its independence. Up to now, there are still continuous disputes within Shan State. Ethnic local armed forces and militia forces are powerful and disputes occur from time to time between local armed forces and with the Burmese Central Army. It can be said that although parts of Shan State belong to Myanmar in name, they actually do not work with the Central Government of Myanmar, which is a bit similar to the state of "warlord separatism" and "occupying the mountain as the king".
Since the distribution map of ethnic armed forces in Shan State (from the Internet) is "separated by warlords," war is inevitable, local development must also be engaged in order to maintain the state of "separated". And this requires money. However, most of these areas are densely forested, lack of natural resources, and are not the world’s shipping routes like the Malacca Strait. In addition, without the support of the Central Government of Myanmar, there is great pressure to develop the economy. Therefore, at the end of the last century, the triangle formed by Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand-also known as the "Golden Triangle", became one of the world's largest poppy cultivation areas. The heroin production here once accounted for about 70% of the world's heroin production. . Almost every family will participate in the drug planting industry. Citizens and local rulers do not think of it as a crime.
Since the Golden Triangle is adjacent to China, the harm to the Chinese people is even more severe. China has come up with a very powerful method-the "alternative planting plan". Simply put, China will provide funds, talents, technology, and markets to help the local people who are living in the "Golden Triangle". Plant sugarcane, rice and other economic crops, and guarantee high-priced purchases, to increase the income of the local people and gradually replace opium poppy cultivation and heroin processing. Later, this approach became an anti-drug plan strongly promoted by the United Nations. With the advancement of alternative planting plans, coupled with the strengthening of the police in various countries against drug crimes, the area of opium poppy cultivation in the Golden Triangle has been greatly reduced, which has benefited the world. However, this plan has also reduced the income of local armed forces in northern Myanmar, which is not enough to support the local economy and people's livelihood operations and war needs.
2) The Paradise of Scams
In recent years, with the development of finance, communications, and various emerging technologies, China's domestic telecommunication network fraud and online gambling have gradually spread, and the police have also strengthened their crackdown and governance efforts. Countless scammers feel that the risk of fraud in China is too big, hence they moved to foreign countries one after another. Southeast Asia, which is adjacent to China, has become the main destination, while northern Myanmar has become the first choice for scammers to leave the country because of its unique elements.
Geographical advantage
The four cities in northern Myanmar are directly bordered by Yunnan Province: Yunnan Pu'er City is opposite the second special zone of Shan State Wa State, Dehong State is opposite to Muse, Lincang City is opposite to Kokang, and Xishuangbanna Prefecture is opposite to the Fourth Special Zone. In Mengla, the China-Myanmar border is more than 2,000 kilometers long. This provides great convenience for scammers to travel between the two places. They can apply for border defense documents to leave the country in a legal manner from major ports, or they can smuggle from the dense forest. A few years ago, as long as you spent 200 yuan, you could ride on a "broker" motorcycle to cross the border smoothly. Although the crackdown on smuggling has been strengthened, the large forests along the border still provide a good cover. As long as you walk around the streets of northern Myanmar and wander among the major groups, smuggling is available at any time. In view of the epidemic, the broker has doubled to almost tens of thousands to cross the border.
Another manifestation of geographical location is that, due to various historical reasons, the infrastructure construction of these cities has basically relied on China. In addition, the Shan people in Shan State and the Dai people in Yunnan have the same roots, so the environment is the same as that of China. The mainland is almost the same.
The three major operators of China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom are used for communication and Internet, and the transaction uses RMB. Major third-party payments such as WeChat and Alipay are also welcome at any time. Chinese characters are more like the official language here. Scammers feels at home without having to adapt to the environment.
Harmony
If you think that the scammers are afraid of the police because of their power and sanctions that you are wrong. The scammers are not even one bit worry at all.
Engaging in online gambling or other frauds in Myanmar is not even a crime by law in Myanmar. Instead, there is a name called "The Internet Economy". Local governments in northern Myanmar have also set up "economic development zones" to vigorously carry out infrastructure construction (mainly building office buildings) to support the development of this industry. The scam industry became the pillar support for their local economic development.
After several years of development, there are three types of businesses in northern Myanmar that are very developed.
The "cash net" technology development, which is to develop various types of gaming development services for fraud gangs.
"The "Pig Slaughter Scheme" that have been rampant in the country have basically led the victims to various fraud platforms in the end.
The "package network" services, which are companies that provide fraud gangs with many services including technology development, nest building, payment channel docking, and advertising promotion. As long as you want to engage in scams.
The last category is the various gambling fraud dens. With the acquiescence of the local governing government, the domestic severely cracked down on various crimes such as Pig Slaughter scheme fraud, naked chat blackmail fraud, and telecommunications fraud have become a formal industry, and the targets of the crimes mainly targeted at the citizens of China; in recent years they switched their customer based to overseas such as Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia and other countries which consist of Chinese people. Local armed forces will even be sent to protect the scam office; they would even informed them pre-hand should there be any operations.
On the left:- Working situation of a fraud den in northern Myanmar (undercover filming)
These fraudulent dens also have to pay a price. The cost of applying for a permit and renting is very high. According to rumors, a certain fraud company pays millions of dollars a day. It is conceivable how much their daily turnover must be in order to ensure profitability.
Finally, talk about "time".
Someone asked, if you know that the scammers are there, why don't you get them all in one pot? A good question. This is probably a question that the police in the whole country who engages in anti-fraud will often ask. Let's take a look at a set of data:
On May 16, 2012, China and Thailand formally signed the "Memorandum on the Transfer of Criminal Suspects by the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China."
On September 25, 2016, the Ministry of Public Security of China and the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam held talks, and the two sides signed the "Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Combating Telecom Fraud Crimes."
On November 21, 2018, the Chinese government and the Philippine government jointly issued the "Joint Statement between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of the Philippines", stating that Article 12 of the statement stipulates: "Both parties agree to strengthen law enforcement cooperation and jointly combat crimes on duty, telecommunications fraud, and illegal online gambling. , Computer crimes, human trafficking, smuggling of endangered wildlife and products, and other transnational crimes.
On August 14, 2019, Liao Jinrong, director of the International Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security of China, met with General NIAO, director of the Cambodian National Police, and decided to establish a China-Cambodia Joint Combat Office to crack down on Chinese-related economic crimes, online fraud and online gambling. On the 18th of the same month, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced the ban on the issuance of various forms of online gambling licenses and a comprehensive rectification of the gambling industry. On the 30th of the same month, Prime Minister Hun Sen again ordered that all illegal and criminal activities in the online gaming industry be seized within 2019.
From the above information, it can be seen that the Chinese police have taken great pains to crack down on fraudsters who have gone abroad. In the past few years, intensive consultations with Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines and other countries have established a mechanism or system for jointly combating telecommunications network fraud and online gambling crimes.
Because we mentioned earlier that northern Myanmar, especially the cities on the Chinese side, are in a state of "warlord separatism" and they are not exactly on good terms to the the central government of Myanmar at all. They would completely ignore the agreement between countries, they do not have to abide by it, and they are not afraid to take responsibility. The domestic police cannot effectively enforce the law outside the country without the permission or assistance of other countries. Even so, the domestic police tried their best. In the past two years, the Ministry of Public Security of China has successively organized the "510" campaign against backpackers at the China-Myanmar border, and "large-scale banning of QQ accounts, WeChat accounts, and Alipay accounts used by fraudulent groups", all of which have achieved good results. , But still unable to fundamentally solve the problem.
3 What's the direction?
By now, you should probably know why scammers picked northern Myanmar, and the reason why domestic police work so hard, and fraud and gambling are so rampant. After all, 100,000 people are there to launch "attacks" against the people in overseas day and night! Moreover, it is beyond the scope of the police's counter-attack. It can be said that if the problem in northern Myanmar is not resolved, 100,000 scammers will be even more unscrupulous, and China's high incidence of telecommunications network fraud and online gambling will not be fundamentally resolved. So, how to solve this problem? In fact, judging from the crux of the above analysis, the path is also very clear.
No 1: Do not allow the scammers to go over
This requires the National Immigration Bureau, the People’s Liberation Army, etc. to strengthen the management of the China-Myanmar border, and crack down on the "brokers" who organize illegal crossings of the border, so that scammers cannot easily access to northern Myanmar. Even if they reaches there, they cannot easily return to China.
Secondly, making sure that the scammers is unable to live
To achieve this, the most important thing is to use various means to make the local governing government in northern Myanmar realize that their telecommunications fraud and online gambling are illegal and criminal, and they are as serious damage to the Chinese people as the cultivation of poppies. Crimes of the people's sense of well-being and security must be resolutely cracked down, instead of condoning or even relying on this to develop the economy.
The root cause is still to solve the local economic development problems. After all, the fundamental reason they support these crimes is to develop the local economy. We can all solve the problem of poppy cultivation for a century through the "alternative planting plan." Tiantiancha believes that the cancer of the "network economy" must also find an alternative. If the above two points are achieved, what the police need to do is to prepare to welcome the return of these 100,000 crooks within the border.