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Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

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Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#31

Post by maxglute »

lysace wrote: post #4

I heard that both sides of the ongoing civil war ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_civil_war_(2021%E2%80%... ) work with these criminal organizations to secure foreign revenue for weapons purchases - but that it is primarily a junta-driven thing. And that the people running them come from PRC Chinese organized crime (triads).

>PRC Chinese organized crime (triads)

Well it's a sinosphere (insert one china joke) organized crime thing.

TLDR Taiwanese organized pioneered telco fraud 20 years ago, started third country scam call centers, primarily targetting tech illiterate PRC retirees. PRC/HK org crime saw how profitable, scaled up, ande more sophisticated (pig butcher + crypto to evade capital controls), targetted global Chinese diasphora. PRC cracks down domestically. They move to Myanmar / south eat asia, partner with local armed groups. Taiwanese call centers still around, but they're squeezed to other part of big butcher scacm chain, i.e. trafficking people. Anyway, every once in awhile their activities piss enough neighbours off especially PRC off that actual state power like junta has to intervenene.

Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#32

Post by Nextgrid »

sysguest wrote: post #24
HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has enough metadata to graph and deduce which are scams.

this > From Google's perspective - someone bought a gift card in the US, and redeemed it somewhere else in the US hmm really? is this coming from a google PR firm or what? if that's the google's "perspective", unfortunately that means google is really technically inept or morally corrupt enough to watch a lot of people, including Americans, go thru the torture and being incinerated. if Google receives a lot of "I was…

> if Google receives a lot of "I was scammed into this" from whoever bought the giftcard

Google doesn't sell the cards directly - at least not the ones purchased at the supermarket and used for scamming. There's a scummy industry of middlemen that handles this - that's why every store can sell basically every gift card; they don't have their PoS interact with every single vendor's API, they delegate to a middleman. So Google gets very limited data at purchase time, and is not technically the merchant selling the goods in this case.

> doesn't google have the responsibility to ask the giftcard user where they got that redeem code from

What will that change in practice? They have 2 options: either accept any answer, and nothing changes, or decline some answers, meaning either legitimate usage gets disrupted or the sites laundering the cards will just tell you the "right" answers to say.

> At least warn them several times, and then cut those buyers too?

Most buyers are one-time users; it's a relatively niche market. Mostly teens/etc who don't have their own payment card or are willing to go through the whole hassle for a small discount. As per the above, cutting people off would likely hinder legitimate usage.

Ideally the whole "gift card" industry just goes away as there's no good reason to have it when we already have the ultimate form of "gift card" in the form of money... but until then, even if Google were to step out of the game someone else will step in (the company issuing the cards isn't directly involved, their gift card is just used as a negotiable instrument in lieu of cash during the scam transaction, so any company's will do).

> has skin in the Cambodian scams

Cambodia/etc is pig butchering/fake investment scams. Gift cards and redeeming is exclusively Indians targeting the US market (in the UK they have money mules to launder actual bank transfers, so no need for gift cards).

Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#33

Post by lysace »

maxglute wrote: post #31
lysace wrote: post #4

I heard that both sides of the ongoing civil war ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_civil_war_(2021%E2%80%... ) work with these criminal organizations to secure foreign revenue for weapons purchases - but that it is primarily a junta-driven thing. And that the people running them come from PRC Chinese organized crime (triads).

>PRC Chinese organized crime (triads) Well it's a sinosphere (insert one china joke) organized crime thing. TLDR Taiwanese organized pioneered telco fraud 20 years ago, started third country scam call centers, primarily targetting tech illiterate PRC retirees. PRC/HK org crime saw how profitable, scaled up, ande more sophisticated (pig butcher + crypto to evade capital controls), targetted global Chinese diasphora. P…

Of course 90% of your previous comments are explicitly related to the PRC. Apologies for only reviewing 100 of them.

Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#34

Post by ryandrake »

Nextgrid wrote: post #15
sysguest wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

idk maybe google is somewhat responsible here? either their fraud-detection isn't working, or they're turning blind-eye here for profit?

It's not actually the scammers that are redeeming the gift cards - instead they are in turn reselling the codes on marketplaces (to legitimate customers) for a small loss as a way of laundering them. From Google's perspective - someone bought a gift card in the US, and redeemed it somewhere else in the US, aka the expected behavior of legitimate gift card usage.

Gift cards are an idea whose time has passed. All they seem useful now is for scams and laundering money. All this plastic waste and fraud, so that a few legit customers can turn general-purpose money into company-specific money. Ridiculous product that should go away.

Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#35

Post by maxglute »

programmertote wrote: post #26
lysace wrote: post #4

I heard that both sides of the ongoing civil war ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_civil_war_(2021%E2%80%... ) work with these criminal organizations to secure foreign revenue for weapons purchases - but that it is primarily a junta-driven thing. And that the people running them come from PRC Chinese organized crime (triads).

Wish I could give your comment 10 more upvotes for visibility. This is Myanmar military trying to do field work for China. China is the one who allowed these militias to thrive in the border areas and they have been arming them for decades. This particular operation happens in Myawaddy, which is in lower eastern part of Myanmar close to Thailand, but not in northeastern Myanmar closer to China, because Myanmar milita…

> now that its citizens are being impacted

PRC citizens were always impacted, these scam centers literally started (by twnese org crime) to target mainland retirees.

PRC would love for Junta to dismantle Kokang / northern scam centers but Junta couldn't because domestic factional power issues vs Northern states. The TLDR is scam centers are protected by pro Junta Kokang faction (BGF), so PRC got tired of Junta waffling and decided to support anti Junta three brotherhood alliance (aka rebels) who went HAM on the scam centers while PRC did military exercises to tell juntas to fuck off and understand PRC willing to patronize other internal players if junta doesn't play ball. Last year's 1027 operation only happened because PRC lost patience with Juntas and now Juntas more keen to help PRC deal vs scam centers (well at least performatively since they still need it for funding) because they know if they did nothing PRC will shop around and empower other players during civil war.

Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#36

Post by maxglute »

lysace wrote: post #33
maxglute wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>PRC Chinese organized crime (triads) Well it's a sinosphere (insert one china joke) organized crime thing. TLDR Taiwanese organized pioneered telco fraud 20 years ago, started third country scam call centers, primarily targetting tech illiterate PRC retirees. PRC/HK org crime saw how profitable, scaled up, ande more sophisticated (pig butcher + crypto to evade capital controls), targetted global Chinese diasphora. P…

Of course 90% of your previous comments are explicitly related to the PRC. Apologies for only reviewing 100 of them.

I use different accounts for different subjects, well I use siloed account for PRC geopolitics, precisely because people challenged on PRC literacy likes to dig through accounts and be wierd about it.

Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#37

Post by lysace »

maxglute wrote: post #36
lysace wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course 90% of your previous comments are explicitly related to the PRC. Apologies for only reviewing 100 of them.

I use different accounts for different subjects, well I use siloed account for PRC geopolitics, precisely because people challenged on PRC literacy likes to dig through accounts and be wierd about it.

> people challenged on PRC literacy

I believe you have a much more literal term for that.

Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#38

Post by xandrius »

datameta wrote: post #23
Mistletoe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I love you” works well, because even if they are a piece of shit now, they need to hear it. No one is born bad. I’ve actually gotten them to break character with stuff like that sometimes.

I agree with the sentiment, but that phrase is too strong to be used in an unfamiliar setting and won't land the same way outside of the anglosphere

Yeah, I'd go for something like "despite what you have to do, you still matter".

Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#39

Post by xandrius »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #28

The vast majority of these are going to turn into AI bots shortly if they aren’t going strong already. The human (slave) in the loop will be there for big fish or to finish the job.

This sounds like an absolutely great win for humans then. Go AI!

Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

#40

Post by noobermin »

ValentineC wrote: post #27
kuangtsao wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work in this industry. It pretty much all started with this group of 'Fujian bosses' who set up these 'scam parks.' They were trying to wash money back to China and came up with all sorts of ways to do it, usually by pretending to be online gambling companies. The people actually doing the scams are on the Thai border, in Myanmar, and Cambodia. The IT and tech staff... well, some are in the parks, but a lot…

> The money gets laundered through all kinds of channels into different tax havens. It might pass through Taiwan—'cause, you know, China can't touch it there and the money looks clean—and then it goes on to China or Singapore... basically, right into those bosses' pockets. Singapore cracked down on a huge part of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Singapore_money_launderin... Funny how the banks let these money…

That's alright, when one falls, 3 others from China will be come in and restart the scheme anew.
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