221–230 of 421 posts
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> 1/3 of the country's entire GDP $15 billion is a huge number to be sure, but it's unclear from the article how many years it took to acquire.
So should we praise the gang's money saving habits?
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That’s not necessarily true, though may be for Cambodia. GDP can include black market activities but countries differ in whether they include specific ones and how.
Right, it's not black market if you eventually pay some taxes on it somewhere. Dare we call it washed money, and for our American friends in the audience, laundered money.
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That’s not necessarily true, though may be for Cambodia. GDP can include black market activities but countries differ in whether they include specific ones and how.
Does it even count in there though? Fraud isn't a normal transaction. It's the same as theft, which is simply a transfer from one person to another. An act of fraud or theft doesn't represent creation of value the way profit from legitimate transactions do for "black market" goods/services (even if the goods/services are illegal).
Admittedly it's doubtful whether this kind of activity would be captured by official statistics.
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Why would the government bother prosecuting/seizing it if the money was going to the victims?
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®" https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...
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> the EAO that was providing protection to Chinese pig-butchering gangs in that region of Myanmar (Kachin Independence Army) Kachin is not a relevant location of scam centers. You can find articles that claim otherwise, e.g. https://www.ctol.digital/news/inside-worlds-largest-scam-emp... but from the fact that they mention the Thai border and the city of Myawaddy, which is in Kayin/Karen State, it's clear that they'r…
The MNDAA is a close ally of the KIA as both are members of the Northern Alliance, and all the Northern Alliance members saw their relations with China tank after Chinese brokered talks with the Tatmadaw failed [0] last December. As a result of that failure, all the Northern Alliance members began trying to pivot to other states or in the case of the MNDAA faced the brunt of the Chinese crackdown. [0] - https://www.b…
Maybe the reduction of Chinese support encouraged the Kachin Independence Army to seek cooperation with India, but you seemed to be claiming that causality was in the opposite direction (while also misidentifying who was running the scam centers), which I think is clearly contradicted by the timeline of events.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s not necessarily true, though may be for Cambodia. GDP can include black market activities but countries differ in whether they include specific ones and how.
Does it even count in there though? Fraud isn't a normal transaction. It's the same as theft, which is simply a transfer from one person to another. An act of fraud or theft doesn't represent creation of value the way profit from legitimate transactions do for "black market" goods/services (even if the goods/services are illegal).
I know it’s a bit of a get out clause but it’s at least not obvious to me that this wouldn’t contribute, certainly the illegal nature is not a blocker for being counted in GDP.
Wow. $15 billion is an astronomical, nearly unfathomable amount of money in Cambodia. This must have been a huge operation. It's almost 1/3 of the country's entire GDP! Well done DOJ. Hopefully the victims get their money back.
So yea, there are massive amounts of money involved.
Wow. $15 billion is an astronomical, nearly unfathomable amount of money in Cambodia. This must have been a huge operation. It's almost 1/3 of the country's entire GDP! Well done DOJ. Hopefully the victims get their money back.
Khesrau Behroz did an amazing podcast about those operations (in German though) [0]. Basically when there was a crack down on providers of illegal sports betting in China, they went abroad and diversified. The betting operation is used to launder the money from those scam operations and betting is still immensely popular in China and done via VPN. Those East Asian sport betting providers are sponsors of many Champion…
[0]https://www.searchengine.show/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-...
Seems organised crime is taking advantage of less-policed (or lawless) regions in Cambodia and Burma. The spectre of a similar scam has resulted in lower Chinese tourism to Thailand. Basically Chinese (among other nationalities) tourists were led from the airport by fake immigration staff, put into cars and driven to Burma and forced to work 18 hour days in scam call centers. A chilling but extremely worthwhile read.…
Spent significant time in Vietnam & Cambodia & Thailand. Cambodia is a sad country full of desperate people. "less-policed" is the entire country. ~50 years since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide . Vietnam was by far my favorite of the three and the contrast between the three countries is stark.