← The Underworld Podcast
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- [00:01]
Danny Gold
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- [01:00]
Dean Mob
24, 2024, in Shanghai, China. An actor, Wang Xing, is scrolling on his phone. Wang, stage name Xing Jing, is an up and comer, 22 years old with credits and some pretty big TV shows. But he still needs work, and when a friend shows him a group on the social media app WeChat called Sunan Professional Actors Group, Wang joins and he hopes for the best. Shortly after, Wang gets a dm. Somebody calling themselves Yan, an acting coordinator for GMM Grammy, the biggest entertainment group in Thailand, record an audition tape. Yan tells him, I think I've got a job for you. A couple days later, Wang does just that. With his girlfriend Jia Jia on camera duty, Yan doesn't even wait a day to message me back, you've got the job. But here's the thing. It's in Thailand and we don't have all the details yet. Wang backs out. It seems a little sketchy. Besides, who is Yan anyway? But Yan keeps pushing, keeps telling Wang how great he is, how if he takes the job, there'll be way more to come in. Media flattery and the promise of an income will get you everywhere. Okay, wang says. I'll come to Thailand. On January 2, 2025, around 9pm Wang departs Shanghai Pudong Airport for Bangkok and arrives in the Thai capital around 2am local time. At 3:40am he climbs into a grey Toyota Altis provided by GMM Grammy, and he heads out on a mega journey across the night almost 300 miles north six hours later, they arrive in Mysot, a small city separated from the Burmese city of Miyawadi by the Moai River. Miyawadi in the war torn state of Cayenne is a hotspot for organized crime, whether drug, gem or gun running or the human trafficking that fuels giant city like scam compounds where armies of slaves work on romance scams or illegal gambling operations worth tens of billions of dollars. Among them, one stands out. A great hub of skyscrapers run by a legendary warlord and financed by an elusive Chinese mobster with ties to politicians all over Asia. Its name is Shway Koko, the Golden Rain Tree, and it's just a short drive from Neowang. Wang has been messaging Jia Jia this whole time. But around 11am Yang loses signal. He's told to switch vehicles at a Mysot supermarket and he hops into a Toyota Hilux pickup driven by a Thai man who calls himself Ravi. They cross a bridge. Wang doesn't even know he's in Myanmar. He just thinks he's getting to his Thai shooting location. In fact, he's been kidnapped and he's on the road from Miawadi to a place called Apollo park, one of the scam centers associated with Shway Coco Xia Jia panics when she still hasn't heard from Wang. The next day on January 3, she reports his disappearance to Shanghai cops, then to the Chinese embassy in Bangkok. But nobody seems to know what's happening, nor do they really care. Two days later, she posts to social media. Please help, she writes. I need to know where Wang is. The post goes viral. Bigwig actors, directors and producers, they get on board within hours. It seems like the whole of China needs to know where Wang Xing is being held. But his ordeal is only just beginning. Welcome to the Underworld podcast. Hello and welcome to the weekly audio visual podcast Experience, where two grizzled, embittered, but remarkably good looking reporters introduce you to the seamy world of global organized crime. I am Sean Williams in Wellington, New Zealand. Dean Mob. Happy. Having just done five days of solo parenting. And I'm joined as ever, by writer, reporter, filmmaker and erstwhile anal cream and torso Danny Gold in New York City.
- [05:23]
Danny Gold
You know that ad hasn't been confirmed yet, so I'm going to ask you to slow down. But potential endorsers, I'd say is is what we are. Potential. But also, what does D Mob mean? You keep saying that. I have no idea what that word means.
- [05:33]
Dean Mob
It's where it's. It's just. It means when you've just come off a military tour. I think the phrase D mob happy is when you're just like you're on shore leave basically, and you're going nuts.
- [05:43]
Danny Gold
Okay, all right, good. Great reference.
- [05:47]
Dean Mob
Thanks always for listening, guys. It has been a great year for us so far. I'm staying that with a straight face for a while and especially appreciate those of you who sign up to the Patreon. There's a ton going up there, including views on Cuba, Brazil, Japan, and frequent stash house roundup shows. And source material and notes for all these whopping great scripts that we put together.
- [06:07]
Danny Gold
Yeah. To sign up, you can actually do that right on Spotify at the top of our page right there or on itunes or@patreon.com InterWorldPodcast it will come right to your Spotify feed or your itunes feed. Making it simple. On the Patreon, you also get ad free episodes and the episodes early, I think. Yeah. On the Spotify too. You get that. Maybe not on I.
- [06:25]
Dean Mob
Why not do that? Yeah, that sounds great, Danny. Why wouldn't people.
- [06:28]
Danny Gold
Why wouldn't.
- [06:29]
Dean Mob
Why wouldn't someone do that? Keep your. Keep your show ideas rolling in. Two guys, the like underworld, podcastmail.com and merch. It's good stuff. What's up your end, man? You've been investigating that shoots out around the corner from your apartment.
- [06:42]
Danny Gold
I actually haven't. You know, I talked about on the stash house, but if you guys don't know, there was a triple murder around apartment around the corner from my apartment. I think it was the biggest mass shooting New York has had in a while besides that one downtown with like the psycho CTE guy. But I think in terms of like, like, I don't think there's been a triple shooting in a very long time. It was a shootout, gang situation. Two. Two shooters killed one innocence in like a crowded club. I think like 10 or 12 people wounded. Wild stuff. But I'm just not like the days of me keeping up the local gangs around me or like known people, all the different acronyms, who did what, who's who, who's, whatever. I think they're kind of past, man. Like I've, you know, I got other problems. I got the other things to worry about, so have not been keeping up with it. Figured it out relatively quickly and then just, you know, whatever it is. I think two shooters involved are still on the run, which is crazy, but there you go.
- [07:40]
Dean Mob
Wow.
- [07:41]
Danny Gold
Yeah.
- [07:42]
Dean Mob
Yeah. This guy only deals in major organized criminal groups these days. Doesn't want to. Doesn't Want to mess with the streets? Now to Myanmar and Shway Coco, a place that the BBC described earlier this year as, quote, a bizarre city built on scams. And this article goes on, quote, the tall shiny buildings which rise out of the cornfields on the Myanmar side of the Moai river are a sight so jarring you find yourself blinking to be sure you haven't imagined it.
- [08:11]
Danny Gold
Yeah, it's interesting you talked about Mesaat in the, in the cold open. When I spent time in Southeast Asia traveling and then later reporting, you know, both in Thailand and in Burma, it was shady for sure, but it was also this kind of like a transit point for like all the aid workers working with Burmese refugees or going into Burma. I think also the Burma Free Rangers might have operated out of there. I could be wrong, but it was a fascinating city in and of itself, like the quintessential wild border city. And who doesn't love a great border city, especially from a war zone to a. You know, we, we've talked about border cities a lot on the show we're used to, but what a place.
- [08:45]
Dean Mob
Oh, just get me out there, man. Anyway, unlike some of the experiences I've had on the road in that part of the world, this is not a drug induced hallucination by the reporter, but one of the strangest places on the planet. A kind of gold standard for a global scam industry that has pretty much taken over Southeast Asia. And as we'll find further down the show, it's actually leading to full blown military conflicts. And we'll get into plenty of other stuff today, including the warlord who runs Shuikoko, the Chinese gangster who owns it, how organized crime is fueling Myanmar's grinding civil war. And of course, what happened to poor old Wang Xing after he got ferried across the border at Mysot. Now also, I think a lot of you have tuned into our shows on Myanmar or Burma, from the historical ones on Khun Sar, Olive Yang, to the shows about the billion dollar meth lab, Rohingya human trafficking and Alice Guo, the Philippine mayor turned scammer turned Chinese spy. You're not going to need telling twice how utterly lawless and breathtaking some of the numbers are in Burmese organized crime. But here's a few to tee up today's show. Like for example, how cyber scamming on Southeast asia generates almost $44 billion per year. Or how Americans alone and bear in mind these scams don't primarily target Americans, lose almost $6 billion to so called pig butchering scams. A Year Pig butchering being the term for fattening the pig, I. E. Keeping a mark invested in a scam all the way up until it's too late and they've handed over their life savings. Illegal betting in Southeast asia, that makes $425 billion per annum. By comparison, Mexican cartels are thought to be making anywhere between 6 and 40 million bucks. So this stuff is wildly like insanely big in Cambodia alone. And we're going to get to Cambodia later on. The UNODC claims that Chinese criminal syndicates control up to 350,000 people and generate up to 75 billion annual revenue. That is around a third to a half of the country's entire gdp, which is why there's a lot of weird political shenanigans going on there right now. We've actually got a couple of interviews I've done for this episode. So you're going to hear from Nathan Su and Lindsay Kennedy, reporters based out in pen on pen and friends of the show of course, who've done some really great work on the topic. And I also spoke with Richard Horsey at the International Crisis Group. I've actually spent a bit of time in Myanmar with Rich and I think he's just about the best source on what's going on there. We'll put the full interview for that on Patreon.
- [11:23]
Danny Gold
Wow, there's so much going on in what you just said. Like I'm even, I'm intrigued and eyes wide open right now. And I've spent time in these places.
- [11:30]
Dean Mob
Yeah, it's, it's, it's mad man. Like Rich has been to Shway Coco. So he's, he's a great source on this and he's actually been to its even madder neighbor, KK Park. He sent me a couple of pics we can stick up on the Patreon as well. And here is how he described it to me.
- [11:46]
Richard Horsey
Yeah, so Shway Coco is really important because of its scale. It's been built over the last decade as a, as a purpose built criminal hub based around casinos, money laundering, and then since around the time of COVID scam centers as well. And that's what's really exploded in terms of revenue. And if you think about what you need to run criminal enterprises like that, you need kind of immunity from law enforcement scrutiny. And Shway Koko has that because it's controlled by an armed group kind of in a vague alignment with the Myanmar military, but it's no proxy of the Myanmar military, so it can pretty much do what it wants. In its area. It's adjacent to the Thai border. So you have access to all the infrastructure of Thailand which does not exist in Myanmar. Things like electricity, fast Internet, those kind of things that you need. But also the logistics of getting people in. Because if you're running casinos, you just need some cameras above the table so you can stream it on the Internet. And you need a few workers who can be, you know, hired and trained locally. But for scamming you need a different profile of person. You need, you know, a tech savvy, English speaking preferably, or Chinese speaking if you're, if you're going after Chinese punters. And you need someone who can present as a kind of professional, someone who's got insider tips on bit trading, someone whose uncle is deeply embedded in the financial systems of the region. You can't do with this with local workers. And so those kind of professionals have to be brought in from all around the world actually. And that's where also being adjacent to the Thai border is very useful because you know, you can fly into Bangkok, you can drive on good roads to the border. And because of the casinos and the pre existing criminality, the path was already opened, greased if you like, for people to cross that border illegally. And so if you've already got a system for local gamblers, some high rollers, some others to cross well across that border without having any paperwork checks, suddenly you can bring in thousands, tens of thousands actually in Chuecoco foreign nationals to work in these scam centers. Some of them tricked, some of them thinking they were just going to go into some acting job or some call center job, thinking data entry job in Bangkok. Others knowing exactly what they were doing and deciding that it was worth the risk for the money.
- [14:30]
Dean Mob
I know we've gone over some of these operations before, but like Rich says, this stuff just really is insane. You've got entire cities cropping up out of literally nothing. Just scrubland patches of dirt in the Mekong or Irrawaddy river basins, skyscrapers, golden casinos, a mile of upon mile of barred razor wire compounds where hundreds of thousands of slaves are sitting on Instagram telling your granddad they're in love with him and they just need a little bit of crypto for a kidney operation. And all of this is going on in a country that is going through a bitter civil war. More belligerence than a game of Fortnite and no end in sight. A small plug to check out my latest feature for the Wire China on how China is wound up in this war. I'm actually trying to get out there in December or January too. So watch this space.
- [15:17]
Danny Gold
Yeah, I think I've suggested this before, but I, you know, our new income stream for the podcast shouldn't be like social media clips or live shows, curated vacations taking listeners to places like this that they shouldn't go. You know, lawless Burmese cities full of illegal casinos and scam centers. I think this is actually our future.
- [15:36]
Dean Mob
Yeah, you're going to have to sign some pretty hefty documentation.
- [15:40]
Danny Gold
Get some documentation. But if you're listening and you have a lot of money, we'll take you. We don't care. We'll do it.
- [15:45]
Dean Mob
Notice how he just like, you know, poo pooed the live show as well as making that comment. But we'll talk about that another time anyway. Kokang is another region of Myanmar that has been riddled with these places over the last few years. That is a mountainous region in northeastern Shan State on the border with China's Yunnan Province. And that has been a hub for global organized crime going all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century. A major producer of heroin, home to Olive Yang Low Singhan and other stars of previous shows. Check out our Cocaine Cowboys 2 parter for more than on that. But if the lesson for Latin American narcos is don't be getting the feds involved in Myanmar, it's don't piss off the Chinese, especially if you're a scamming kingpin hanging out right there on the Chinese border. Now, the compounds across Kokang and Shan State, they're primarily focused at squeezing cash out of Chinese marks. And in late 2023, China actually corrals together three ethnic rebel groups into something called the Three Brotherhood Alliance. Kicking off Operation 1027, named after its start date to wipe out scamlords in the region. Operation 1027 is still going today. It's since drawn a fourth rebel group into the alliance and and it's been so successful that not only have the majority of scam compounds shut down, but the China backed rebels have used it to break the lines of Myanmar's ruling hunter, the Tatmadaw. And now China is demanding they pull back for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with mining and money. But you can read my article for that. Because what Operation 1027 means down in Cayenne State is that all eyes have been off shway Koko and and its own constellation of warlords and gangsters. And the results of that have been pretty spectacular.
- [17:33]
Danny Gold
Hold on, let me just. I want to Backtrack this because there's a lot going on right here. So the Chinese government has sponsored three different rebel groups to fight these scam compounds. With the scam compounds are run by guys who have their own rebel armies. That's how profitable they are.
- [17:48]
Dean Mob
Yep.
- [17:49]
Danny Gold
And. And this rebel alliance fight is. Has done so well that they've now taken the fight to the government of Myanmar. Even though both of these groups, the government of Myanmar and the rebel alliance are both sponsored by the Chinese.
- [18:05]
Dean Mob
Exactly. And the Chinese have basically told them to pull out of towns and cities they've taken from the Tatmadaw because they've taken over areas where they produce tons of minerals that China needs. The Chinese have basically gone, oh, shit. The whole reason for this war for us is to keep hold of all this stuff. And now the rebels are in control, and we don't like that. So they've kind of like. Yeah, I don't know. The way that China is involved in this war is insane. We'll get to more of it later on.
- [18:35]
Danny Gold
Yeah, this is. This is probably the craziest in our story I've heard in.
- [18:38]
Sean Williams
In.
- [18:38]
Danny Gold
In a while. And it's really just probably significantly undercovered, except for. Except for.
- [18:44]
Dean Mob
Terribly undercovered.
- [18:44]
Danny Gold
Yeah.
- [18:45]
Dean Mob
Yeah, except for me. Except for me. So pay me lots of money to do that. First off, though, let's. Let's just park that for a second and go back all the way to 1994. And that is the year that a young rebel commander named Sor Chit Thu gathered a bunch of his men and he forms the splinter group from the Karen National Union, or knu, and calls it a democratic Karen Buddhist army, the dkba.
- [19:12]
Danny Gold
Can you just explain to the audience who the Karen are real quick?
- [19:15]
Dean Mob
Yeah. The Karen are kind of the indigenous people of Cayenne, which is another confusing part of this story. But they're. They basically an ethnolinguistic group. I think they. They only make up like 5% of Myanmar, but that basically is enough. Everything in Myanmar is based on ethnolinguistic groups and all states are. Which is kind of part of the problem of the country as a whole. And the dkba, this group that saw Chip Thu gathers. They're just a few thousand men. Right. They're an offshoot of an offshoot of an offshoot in this insane, just constantly splitting up world of Burmese rebels. And if you want to laugh or that massive headache, go to the list of ethnic organizations in Myanmar Wikipedia page and just like scroll down for about 15 minutes. And then you'll appreciate how bloody difficult it is to write about the country, which out without needing like a full glossary after every paragraph. And yeah, the state is Cain, the people are the Karen. That is all totally cool and it makes a ton of sense, trust me.
- [20:23]
Danny Gold
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny when people. I guess funny might be the wrong term when people refer to the civil war in Myanmar, you know, because it's kind of like the government there has been embroiled in numerous civil wars for decades and decades since it. Since it basically came into power. I came at like what, half a dozen various rebel militias they've been fighting against for decades and decades.
- [20:43]
Dean Mob
Probably more. Yeah, it just keeps splitting into way more. I think there's like maybe 17 active groups at the moment. It's. It's mad. Anyway.
- [20:54]
Danny Gold
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- [21:15]
Richard Horsey
Not available in all states.
- [21:20]
Danny Gold
The information that I am providing today is coming from higher dimensional consciousness. Things got so weird during 2020. And it wasn't just the QAnon conspiracy theorists. This new age chapter channel told us Donald Trump is a massive and powerful light worker. A light worker. And then what about this Oprah endorsed best selling feminist health icon talking about heavy metals that are in vaccines that make our bodies literally into an antenna with 5G. As we continued studying what we now call conspirituality, it only got more intense. This is the cult of Baphomet. This is Molly Malachite worshipping stuff. It gets very gory in the basement. And it culminated with that shaman dude showing up at the capital Insurrection. But it didn't stop there. Every week on Conspirituality Podcast, we track the overlaps between New Age spirituality and far right conspiracy cults. Have you ever wondered why we call French fries French fries? Or why something is the greatest thing since sliced bread? There are answers to those questions. Everything Everywhere Daily is a podcast for curious people who want to learn more.
- [22:33]
Dean Mob
About the world around them.
- [22:35]
Danny Gold
Every day you'll learn something new about things you never knew you didn't know. Subjects include history, science, geography, mathematics, and culture. If you're a curious person and want to learn more about the world you live in, just subscribe to Everything everywhere Daily wherever you cast your podcast.
- [22:52]
Dean Mob
All of that is to Say that the KNU is fighting for an independent Cayenne state. But saw Chitu, he doesn't fit the mold of that, right? He is wild and he's venal and he's preoccupied with cash. The KNU claims it boots him out in 1994. Whether he was pushed or he jumped. He forms his new group and they fortify a small area on the Thai border along the Moai river at Miyawadi, building encampments, villas and a parade ground. Chitzu, he assumes control of something called the 999 Special Battalion, which even by Burmese standards is outlandishly bloodthirsty. The 999 often sweep across the river to massacre Thai civilians and it burns down camps of refugees from Myanmar's never ending war. The Tatmadaw joins a pact with Jih Tzu. No longer will he fight for an independent Cain, but for the regime against his former comrades, the knu.
- [23:48]
Danny Gold
And just to reiterate, Tatmandale was essentially like the central government of Myanmar, right? It's like calling the Russian government the Kremlin pretty much.
- [23:54]
Dean Mob
Yeah, it's like a, it's like a really weird cult like Buddhist supremacist organization. And yeah, it's, they always, they are also called the sac. So if you see that in, in, in the news, that is basically just the same word as the Tamado. Anyway, this is a pretty common story across Myanmar, right? Which is another reason that it is completely screwed. This kind of like series of pacts and deals that the Tatmador makes just to cling on to power. So now in control of a major border crossing, saw chit 2 soon amasses great wealth either by taxing or leading himself operation smuggling jade, gems, rare earth materials, wildlife, timber, even people. Now in the mid-1990s, Burmese heroin takes a nosedive, right? As meth production takes over. I think there's like an exact crossover on a graph in 1996 and Chitzu makes a huge packet on the new narcotic of choice. He ferries millions of so called yabba or crazy pills from jungle labs in neighboring Burmese states, across Thailand and into the rest of Asia. He constructs a giant theme park and resort just outside the Cayenne capital, Paan. And he names it after himself. In 2010, Chitu's DKBA formally allies with the Tatmadaw and becomes one of several border guard forces or BGFs across Myanmar. These are official regime proxies. The Tatmador basically tells them, be our friends and we'll Let you do whatever you want on your own turf. Here's the Asia Times quote. For over two decades, Chit2 has been a case study in prolonged impunity and an environment where insecurity merges seamlessly with illicit enterprise, collective elite, rent seeking, and the gray area of multiple antagonists with shifting loyalties in a long running civil war. In 2015, the Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi wins a national election and returns Myanmar to democracy. I'm doing gigantic air quotes, of course here, because the Tatrador has spent so many years making these Faustian pacts just like the ones it's done with. So Kih Tsu that Myanmar isn't really a country by this point, right? It's a patchwork of fiefdoms run by warlords, gangsters and religious zealots. So Aung San SUU Kyi stands pretty much no chance of keeping power or uniting the nation. And in 2021, the Tatmadaw just seizes control of the country right back in a coup po, democracy forces declare a civil war and all these dense regional disputes, they just fire right back up again. Now because of this dense weave of deals the Tatmador has done with kingpins like Chit Thu, this isn't just a war between the regime and and pro democracy forces, which makes it really, really hard for the media to get their teeth into. There are wars within wars, old scores being settled, hatreds revived. There are gangs fighting gangs, rebels versus rebels, Rohingya Muslims being targeted yet again. And China is backing whoever it thinks will protect its massive investments. We're talking tens and tens of billions of dollars from oil rigs and ports to roads, dams, and most importantly, mines. And this cannot be overstated, right? Myanmar provides almost two thirds of the entire world's heavy rare earths. This is the stuff making your iPhones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, jet fighters, TVs.
- [27:33]
Danny Gold
Wait, that can't be true. Really, more than, than all of Africa and Congo. All that? Really?
- [27:39]
Dean Mob
Yep. It's insane. It's. I think it's about 61 of China's imports of rare earths, which is almost like China makes nearly all of them. So it's staggering the amount of mineral wealth which is just across Chinese border.
- [27:54]
Danny Gold
That's. I had no idea, dude. That's nuts.
- [27:57]
Dean Mob
Yeah, yeah. And. And like the mines, they're only in one part, right? So in the. This is kind of going off track, but there's like a group called the Kia. Let's not go into that. But they're now in control because of the free brother alliance of like, half the world's rare earth minerals. So they've just like China has backed them to smash the scam compounds, and they in turn have just suddenly commanded one of the world's greatest deposits of money. This is not to say like, it's insane.
- [28:28]
Danny Gold
Do you think they'd be interested in maybe podcast ads?
- [28:32]
Dean Mob
Okay, I'll ask them. I'll ask them. I found some good contacts.
- [28:35]
Danny Gold
Yeah, please reach out.
- [28:36]
Dean Mob
See, maybe reach out to them.
- [28:37]
Danny Gold
Maybe they have some things they want people to know or invest in.
- [28:40]
Dean Mob
I don't know. I'll give you some investment tips actually, after this show because there are some pretty good ones related to Myanmar anyway. I'm not saying there aren't people fighting for rights and freedom in Myanmar. There are, of course, millions of people doing that, many of them young students, mothers, fathers, incredibly impressive folks switching overnight from college or jobs to front lines. But it's useful to be reminded that the two main things overwhelmingly driving conflict in Myanmar are resources and cash. It always has been, always will be. Now, Soo had been doing pretty well during the democracy years. Between 2016 and 2021, he'd been able to work his way into the legitimate economy. A Toyota dealership he's running gets subcontracted to a Chinese mega road building project with the Asian Development Bank. I mean, you want to make real money. Help build freeways in developing countries and.
- [29:35]
Danny Gold
Running car dealerships even in, like, the Midwest. Dude, that's where the cash is at, man.
- [29:38]
Dean Mob
Do you know a funny little fact that the the president of Palau runs a Toyota dealership in Baltimore?
- [29:45]
Danny Gold
Didn't. Didn't know.
- [29:45]
Dean Mob
Like, yeah, I just found that out recently. It's pretty weird. Anyway, you want to make even more money, you carve out your own mini kingdom. You build freeways for China. You smuggle drugs, weapons and resources. You have an army. And in the case of Sawchit Thu, Pal up with a mad fugitive Chinese Cambodian gangster. Oh, who also claims that he's a spy. So the more eagle eared of you might remember today's next protagonist from a show we did back at the start of the year about Alice Guo, the Philippine mayor and scam center operator who's probably also a Chinese Communist party spy. It's a great story. Massive scandals, slave compounds, drugs.
- [30:24]
Nathan Sutherland
Go.
- [30:24]
Dean Mob
Listen, if you haven't already. Well, the guy who outed her as a spook, his name is Terrible Chinese pronunciation. Incoming Sh. Shi Zhang. Oh, my God, that guy. I've been. My head's gone since that guy sent me an email about messing up Chinese pronunciations. Shizhang Shi Xijiang sometimes goes by a Cambodian name I'm not even gonna try bothering to say. And not only is he knee deep into Philippine pig butchering scams, but he's also the gangster in chief at Shway Coco, building an empire from nothing alongside Sore Chit Thu and his battalion of rebel thugs. Now SH runs a company called Yatai International holding, registered in Hong Kong, headquartered in Bangkok, with big projects in Cambodia, the Philippines and yes, Myanmar. Despite this guy being at the heart of one of the biggest criminal marketplace on earth, very little is known or written about him. In fact, a 2017 Chinese magazine magazine profile of him, the writer calls Sh a quote, legend without a story. And and then it goes into writing a story about him. He's born in 1980 to a farming family in central China. He works dozens of odd jobs before he claims moving to Manila and getting a break in quote, game development. Although it doesn't go into any detail there. He says it was difficult to get by as a Chinese businessman abroad when he first moved away. But he adds that these days, quote, the status of overseas Chinese has clearly improved. People have started to respect you and give you a high look because behind you is a powerful China. To what extent that powerful China is actually behind Shi is part of his mystery. But we'll get to that. Shirt runs an upmarket spa by Manila's international airport and a huge complex on a beach in Cambodia. I think like again, this is, quote, gaming, but I think I read something crazy like it takes up 20% of Cambodia's coastline. Nobody knows exactly how he bagged a Cambodian passport. But you know, in a country where you can pay the government 250 grand for one, it's probably that. But it is in Cayenne State where Shi starts his most controversial project. Securing permission from the burmese government in 2018 for a 25 acre, $15 billion city in Sorchit Thu's stronghold of Shway Koko. 25 acres, who soon becomes 50. And the final size of the plans are thought to be 3,000 acres, about four times the size of Central park or five times the size of the City of London.
- [33:03]
Danny Gold
I actually fact checked you on this. It's like the City of London, like that tiny old area right now, like the whole thing of London. You got to be where to yell that in the comments. You got to be specific about that. I'm on your side.
- [33:13]
Dean Mob
The city of London. It's the city.
- [33:15]
Sean Williams
Yeah.
- [33:15]
Danny Gold
But I don't know what that means. No square mile, no one not from England knows what that means.
- [33:19]
Dean Mob
Oh come on man. Well I've never heard of central parks. New yet I city as it will be known will include an airport, luxury housing, a 1200 room hotel, casinos, supermarkets, department stores and industrial zone, entertainment complex and weirdly a police station or I guess that makes perfect sense, really ensures people quickly set about destroying local villagers homes to make it. Some folks head out in the morning to work and return to find their homes bulldozed. Here is rich again.
- [33:51]
Richard Horsey
So you know I was last in shway Koko, I don't know about seven years ago and I just drove there from Yangon. The roads were pretty bad. There was a sort of not very significant checkpoint which kind of just asked me a couple of questions and then on I went and suddenly I was in this kind of Chinese city. You know, it had, it looked like I was in China. It had been built by Chinese construction companies according to the templates for you know, large villages, large sort of urbanized villages in China. So you had all of the road markings, all of the rubbish bins with little pandas on top, everything a little fake lake in front of the six story Chinese hotel where the sign was only in Chinese, where the staff only spoke Chinese, not Burmese. If you'd blinked you could have believed that you were in China. But most of the area at that point was still a construction site. And they had these investment pamphlets for kind of Chinese investors which was presenting this as a high tech city, a city that was going to have its own airport. This was going to be the first cryptocurrency driven city in the world. There was all this puff and inflation. But what it was was very obvious. It was a route for Chinese capital that at that point because of Chinese controls on moving money outside the country, there was this kind of desperation to find way to get your money out of the country. If you had a kid that you were going to put through university in Singapore or in the US or something, you needed money outside the country. If you were worried about your assets being frozen, you wanted money outside the country. And so these kinds of zones offered not just a potentially lucrative investment. You could pay your investment onshore in China and it would be invested offshore and your profits would be paid offshore. So it was also an invitation for moving capital outside the country. So not everyone invested in this believed the puff, but I think some of them did. But what actually was going on was just loads and loads of six story gray concrete Buildings were being put up with high fences, razor wire on the inside keeping people from getting out, not keeping people from getting in. And then these were just being stuffed with, with call center workers for scamming.
- [36:16]
Dean Mob
So you've got this giant city popping out of nowhere. Shiji Zhang is at the helm, pouring in cash that he's made from his other criminal enterprises across Asia. And all of it is overseen by Sor Jitu and the dkba. By this point, Chitu leads five local corporations working not only with gangsters like Sh, but in mining, oil, auto dealing, tourism. I mean, tourism in Myanmar. Okay. Financial investment and energy.
- [36:45]
Danny Gold
Wait, to be fair, if this was like the mid 2010s, tourism in Myanmar probably looked like there was potential for it to bust wide open. I mean, you know, precarious investment.
- [36:53]
Dean Mob
But still, I guess during the democracy years, there was a lot of, like, column inches, especially in the U.S. right, because Aung San Suu Kyi was best mates with Obama.
- [37:01]
Danny Gold
Yeah, there was. I did a big. I did a lot of work on it. There was a lot of scandals because they were. The UN especially was downplaying what was happening to the Rohingya. Despite all the warnings that groups like Fortify Rights were issuing and all the things that they were saying were happening, the UN completely ignored it. So did the west, because they wanted to open the country up. They thought it would be beneficial. Didn't work out, but, you know.
- [37:25]
Dean Mob
No, but shout out to Yangon. One of the most fun cities I've been in. The world is such a cool place. I have no idea what it's like at the moment, but it is really great the whole time. So Kitsu is turning the region into his own family kingdom. Right. He's delegating more and more to his three children. They live in Shway Villa, which is a sprawling hacienda at the heart of Shway Koko, surrounded by luxury vehicles, security guards, artwork, jewelry, billionaire stuff. Rich Horsey went to Shway Coco a few years back, and this is what he saw.
- [37:58]
Richard Horsey
When I drove to Shway Koko a few years ago, I drove along the road from Paan and I'd heard about this place and so I tried to find it. And it's not actually that difficult to find. It kind of. It glows on the landscape, if you like. It's a short drive from Pan in the direction of the Thai border, and it's the most bizarre, incongruous theme park you can imagine. In the middle of the paddy fields, you've got this area carved out By Made by Chit Thu. The guy who runs this border guard force, the Karen national army, know the scam centers, Reiko Co, all that stuff. And he's thought, I don't know what he's thought actually. I don't know if this is a vanity project or he's thought I'll give a little bit back to the people. But you know you've got this elevated kind of roller coastery kind of ride with pink rabbit cars that you can sit in, you know and take selfies and that takes you through the jungle and then you've got like gaming areas and you've got oh, some windmills. He obviously looked the at this and he thought we need some if people are going to stay here. If one day of riding in a pink rabbit shaped roller coaster car through the canopy isn't enough and you want to stay overnight, people are going to want some pretty cool accommodation. And so he's built this kind of row of brightly colored windmills along the river. And they're actually hotels, you can stay in there, they've got time. Upstairs, downstairs, duplex rooms, um, not the finest quality I would say, but certainly you know, adds to the, adds to the kind of garishness of the whole place. And then right in the middle you've got this, you can shoot any gun you want place. There's just this life size style Rambo figure outside this kind of concrete box. And then yeah, you want to shoot an AK47, go ahead. If you want to shoot a, you know, M16, go ahead. You want to shoot a 50 caliber machine gun. Yeah, a bit more expensive but go for it. And there's no kind of security. This is not a shooting range where you know, you've got to sign a, sign a three page waiver and then you know, not touch the weapon until you're instructed to do so. It's like oh, there it is on the table. Go for it. Shoot at the wall. So it's. Yeah. And this is in the middle of a war zone where all of these weapons have been, you know, are being used on a daily basis. And so know something for everyone. You know, your kids can, can ride in the rabbit, you know, dad can shoot, get some frustration out by shooting a 50 cal. You know, mom can kind of take selfies in front of the of the windmills.
- [40:35]
Danny Gold
So.
- [40:36]
Richard Horsey
Something for everyone. Yeah.
- [40:37]
Danny Gold
Tron Aries has arrived.
- [40:39]
Dean Mob
I would like you to meet Ares, the ultimate AI soldier. He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent.
- [40:46]
Danny Gold
You think you're in control of this you're not on October 10th. What are you? My world is coming to destroy yours. But I can help you. The war for our world begins in IMAX. Tron Ares.
- [41:02]
Dean Mob
Rated PG13.
- [41:03]
Danny Gold
May be inappropriate for children under 13. Only in theaters October 10th. Get tickets now. Every town has a dark side. This is Andrew Fitzgerald from the Everytown podcast, where every single week we dive into insane and mysterious true crime stories, most of which you've never heard of. Stories like the bizarre disappearance of Tyler Davis in Columbus, Ohio. A 29 year old father trying to find his way back to his hotel when he disappeared and was never heard from again. And Elizabeth Shoaf from Lugoff, South Carolina, who was abducted from her driveway by a madman and taken to his underground ground bunker in the woods. We give you all the details you're interested in hearing about without any fluff or fillers because ain't nobody got time for that. We cover everything from psychopaths to poltergeists. So go check out the Everytown podcast because Everytown, no matter how nice it may seem, has a dark side.
- [42:01]
Dean Mob
When you listen to Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone, the comedy podcast, you learn stuff. I've been learning to throw a boomerang.
- [42:08]
Sean Williams
Because this is the kind of thing.
- [42:09]
Danny Gold
That really, really gets the listeners engaged. You know, interviews with people who will make you smarter. Does the amount that you learn protect you from cognitive decline? Can't people just listen to the show? Can't they just enjoy a delightful treehouse full of information and I think I'm bleeding. Join us and be a nobody.
- [42:31]
Dean Mob
A shooting range and a war themed amusement park beside a giant slave scam compound in the middle of an active war zone. It's all pretty on the nose. There's no subtlety here. Shiji Jiang's Yatai City brings in waves of overseas workers, most of whom have their passports seized on arrival and threatened into scamming sex, work or other labor tasks. Here's one victim speaking to the Irrawaddy website recently. Quote, after you enter Shway Koko, you, you have to do a job interview with Yatai first. Only after you are approved by Yatai can you proceed to apply at online scam centers that are recruiting. No company can recruit without approval from Yatai, which is to say basically by this point, SH has just taken over the sea. Deutsche Welle spoke to several victims at Shway Coco recently as well. One of them, a young man from West Africa, says that people there work 17 hour days. No rests, no day off, and no ability to leave the Compound. A bit like a podcaster, he describes having witnessed beatings, tortures, and even murders on the office floor. And he adds, quote, if we say we want to leave, they tell us they will sell us or kill us. To be fair, that's not like podcasting. But now we get onto the 2021 coup. The Tatmador seizes power from Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar descends back into civil war. And this is actually pretty bad for Chipdu's business. As the conflict spreads and more and more rebel groups pop up, there are more challenges to his monopoly of the Mysot borderlands. A bunch of the juntas proxies are funded by scams. But the tapador's most important backer, the one providing all the drones, the guns and the bombs that it's using to obliterate civilians, that is China.
- [44:19]
Danny Gold
I think the Russians also provide a lot too. Like they're one and two and I think they trade off per year because the Russians provide, I think, jets, right, and like advanced weaponry.
- [44:27]
Dean Mob
I think the Russians would with the biggest providers up until the middle of last year. And then China kind of like, yeah, they're trading off, really stepped up backing them again. And I think it could be decisive. And when China gets angry about the scams and it launches Operation 1027 against Tatmadaw proxies, I know this is a little bit confusing. The Tatmadaw realizes it needs to show Beijing it's at least doing something to stop this massive multi billion dollar dark industry and it closes down a handful of compounds, basically saying, please, Daddy, I'm doing something, don't be mad at me. Chit Thu begins plotting a way to keep his fortunes and control over Shway Koko while somehow at the same time avoiding the wrath of the Tatmadaw or the tons of rebels sweeping across the country in 2022. Things get a bit more complicated when Thai officials arrest Xie Xi Jiang and they promise to extradite him to China to face charges of running illegal gambling operations because yeah, no shit. Yatai releases a statement claiming that it's only into, quote, legal real estate development. Sh actually then claims two things. One, that he's not actually Chinese at all and therefore can't be extradited. And two, that he's actually working alongside the Chinese Communist Party as an intelligence asset, which is pretty wild, but not without precedent. Another man involved in Shuikoko is Wang Kwok Koi, AKA Broken Tooth, one of the most notorious triad gang leaders in Asia and a star of a show we did, I think back in 2023. Now broken tooth has his fingers or teeth in criminal pies all over Asia from pen on pen to Palau as there can't be many shows that we've mentioned Palau twice. Jesus. And he regularly touts the fact that he works on behalf of the Chinese government. Here is Jason Tower, an expert in Myanmar. QUOTE 1quack Koi also has a quote that he uses fairly regularly. He says he used to fight for the cartels and now he fights for the Chinese Communist Party. So you see, even besides the war in Myanmar, all of this has a deeply political angle. China has sunk tens of billions of dollars into Myanmar, especially mining, timber and gas. And its place since the outbreak of war has basically to been backing whichever groups, whether rebels or regime which can promise to keep its stuff safe. There's an extraordinary phenomenon in the west of the country in Rakhine State which is home to the long suffering Rohingya where refugees and civilians will actually take shelter underneath. And besides a massive Chinese oil and gas pipeline because it is the only thing they can guarantee no soldier will dare to take aim at. Caen State is also home to Chinese assets. So it's not crazy that Shijiang or or Saw Chip Thu would be working closely with the Chinese Communist Party to ensure their investments are kept safe, all the while using that cover to build their vast criminal empire. In 2023 the UK sanctioned Shiji Zhang and so for being quote, responsible for providing support for or obtaining benefit from the trafficking of individuals to Shway Koko where they were forced to work as scammers targeting English speaking individuals and were subject to torture, physical abuse and further cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Quick side note here, it's a bit rich in the UK given that a lot of the holding companies are based in the Isle of Man, which is a tax haven off the west coast of England. It's pretty unlikely also that these sanctions have any more than a symbolic impact. It's not as if either man is heading over to England for medical treatment or a cornish pasty for example in March 20244 the Tatmadaw squeezes saw Chit Thu to go on raids against the knla, another ethnic group in the region. Do it or we'll mess up your criminal empire, they tell him. So he quits, he calls time on his association with the Tatmador and he rebrands his border guard force as the kna, the Karen National Army. He's going it completely alone essentially and he's telling anybody, including the regime, that they can come and have a go if they think they're Arden.
- [48:54]
Danny Gold
So I'm assuming he's sensing the government is too weak at this point to do anything to him.
- [48:57]
Dean Mob
Yeah, the tapador is super, super weak. I think, like before the Chinese stepped in after that Operation 1027, most people were expecting them to actually lose the war and things might have changed since, so. And especially like in the hinterlands, like, like Cayenne, I mean, they've got no control at all. So, yeah, I think he was seeing his chance. Construction and scamming gather pace at Shway Coco's various little sub kingdoms and cities, and the tales of extreme violence continue to trickle out from survivors. Some people are attacked with cattle prods, others are tied up for hours in stress positions or crucified with ropes or made to crawl across gravel until their hands are necessary. Knees bleed. Shi Zhang, who is still in a Thai prison at this point, he continues singing about his involvement with the Chinese state, which I guess given China is the biggest player in all, this isn't the most advisable thing to do. But it seems to be the kidnapping of actor Wang Xing, the story at the top of today's show, which really turns the tide against Shway Koko and saw Chit Fu. If you remember, we left his story on January 5 this year. He's across the Myanmar border and his girlfriend Jaja has managed to go viral on Chinese social media, getting fellow actors and movie makers and shakers to share it. Another Chinese actor comes forward and said he'd almost fallen into a similar trap, checking into a Bangkok hotel before reaching out to the director. He's been told he's attached to the products, only to realize the director isn't involved at all and it's all a scam.
- [50:32]
Danny Gold
Why go after actors like that? I mean, what's the point of grabbing people with some degree of fame whose disappearance can only bring unwanted attention? It just seems stupid and illogical, I think.
- [50:42]
Dean Mob
I think from like the Chinese reports that I read, it's because the middlemen, like the kind of human trafficking gang that was the go betweens between China and Myanmar, I think they had been somewhat involved in the movie business. There's like a cameraman or some kind of a, like a minor director or something is pretty weird. There's a lot of conflicting information. So I didn't want to like stick it all in there because it's, it's, it's pretty sort of gray anyway. Jar Jar Flies out to Bangkok on January 6, and she heads straight to the Chinese embassy. The following day, after negotiations between Thai, Burmese and KNA officials, Wang is handed back over at a bridge between Mysot and Miyawadi, Gary Powers style. His head is shaven and he's wearing a white T shirt and shorts. Visibly thinner and scared, he tells cops he'd seen three buildings at his compound. The first was a gathering place for new abductees where he'd been alongside 10 other Chinese nationals. Then they were taken to a second building, a training center, where he says up to 50 Chinese had been imprisoned for three days. In that building, people had taught him how to carry out online fraud. He'd never fully made it, however, to the third building, but said it was huge and helped people from all over the world. Everybody had shaved heads and wore white just like him.
- [52:06]
Danny Gold
I mean, this is absolutely insane. Like, I've covered on the ground in Burman Thailand the way Southeast Asian slavery wings worked with the Rohingya, you know, which were like gang pressing them into. Into being slaves in like the seafood industry, you know, I think it was actually the third episode of the show we ever did. But. And don't get me wrong, it's unfathomably brutal. Like those. But this is insane. Like, this is. This is something out of like a science fiction movie.
- [52:30]
Dean Mob
Yeah. And I think the first time that we did a show on this, I remember the number being officially that like 150 to 200,000 people were in these camps. And now I think some figures are saying 350,000. So it's like it is not stopping. It is a complete scandal. Wang makes it back to Shanghai on January 11 this year. But his story has rocked China and given it has pretty much launched a military operation to cut down scam operations just a couple years previous. This is not good news for Shway Koko. A week later, CCP cops bust what they claim is the human trafficking ring that lured Wang into Myanmar alongside dozens of others. That's the group that we just mentioned was maybe involved in filmmaking to begin with. And then under pressure from China, Thailand cuts off the supply of electricity, Internet and fuel to areas controlled by Cayenne ethnic rebel groups, including, of course, the kn. Thousands of Chinese cancel vacations to Thailand and air carriers cancel hundreds of flights. Sorchit Thu may well know that he's time's up. By this point, he's ditched his powers in the tapador. He's pretty much at war with every other regional rebel group. Thailand is ghosting him. His biggest client is in a prison cell and China is coming for him. It is not great. So what does he do? Well he actually does something pretty ingenious. I mean you know, obviously immoral, terrible and possibly evil. But he suddenly releases thousands of people from block compounds all over Shway Coco around 7,000 in total who are packed into detention facilities, then fed little and are just a gigantic headache for Burmese and Thai authorities. There are folks from 29 countries in this holding pens including the Philippines, Kenya, even the Czech Republic. We've seen this happen in Europe with Russia and Belarus and Turkey in turns releasing huge number of refugees and asylum seekers into Poland and other states, kind of using people as a weapon and threats against the West. And given a lot of these people's countries don't even have embassies in Myanmar, Thailand. It's been a huge problem that has taken authorities attentions off. So Chit Thu here is rich again.
- [54:48]
Richard Horsey
You know, it's one thing to have Myanmar refugees crossing the border and that's something that Thailand has had to deal with for decades. It's difficult but you know, you kind of give them some land and they'll cut down some bamboo and build some shelters and you know, when the, when it's safe to do so you encourage them firmly to go back. But you can't do that with, with like foreign nationals. Right. Third country nationals. You know these are, these are not people who will just live off the land. These are people who have no, no idea how to kind of, they don't speak Thai. You know, they're used to sort of buying food from 7 11. And so yeah, it was a huge problem. There was no space in, in the prisons, there was no detention centers for them. Immigration detention wouldn't have been able to handle this. And some of these countries don't have embassies in Thailand or even in Southeast Asia. And so the process of arranging how you identify, are they criminals, are they not? They've had their passports taken, they don't have any paperwork. How are we going to fly them back to Ethiopia? It took months and that was just a small fraction of the number of people he had. So it was an implicit threat to Thailand. You want to play hardball, how would you like 100,000 or 30,000 say foreign nationals suddenly dumped in Mesopot? See how you like that, you know, and so you know that's just one example of the kind of leverage that a powerful non state actor has over a neighboring country.
- [56:09]
Dean Mob
Right.
- [56:09]
Richard Horsey
He plays by different rules than Thailand has To play by.
- [56:13]
Dean Mob
This is really grim stuff, of course, but it's also really fascinating how this criminal kingdom has spilled out into all kinds of high politics, dragging in just about every major power on earth.
- [56:24]
Danny Gold
I mean, I keep saying it, but it's insane. Right. So thousands of scam center slaves were just kind of wandering across the border from like all different countries.
- [56:32]
Dean Mob
Yeah. And they're just kind of stuck free now, guys. And then they're just held in these like detention centers because the people can't do anything with them. And they're just like a massive political issue. Jesus. Yeah, it's. It's nuts, man. In May this year, the US sanctions saw chip says Treasury Deputy Sec. Michael Falkender quote, cyber scams. Operations such as those run by the KNA generate billions in revenue for criminal kingpins and their associates, while depriving victims of their hard earned savings and sense of security. Treasury is committed to using all available tools to disrupt these networks and hold accountable those who seek to profit from these criminal schemes. Like the UK's move. You might think this is little more than tough words, but Rich actually sees it a little differently.
- [57:17]
Richard Horsey
I don't think it has much practical impact. I don't think Jetdu was planning on visiting the US anytime or keeping his assets in banks that will be subject to US jurisdiction. But Thailand is a place that is very integrated with the US economy and where the US does have quite a lot of leverage. And so it puts pressure on Thailand, I think, not to treat, not to allow him to make use of the Thai financial system and so on to further his aims Shway.
- [57:50]
Dean Mob
Coco has allegedly switched up to Starlink to provide the Internet connections for scam operations since May. But a lot of its buildings have allegedly fallen quiet and Soochit Thu has come out in the media to protest his innocence. I am a Karen citizen who has struggled since childhood, he says. Recently I joined the military at a young age after being denied the opportunity to receive an education. It is not wrong to want the country to develop for the Karen people to live better lives. But who would have thought, who would have thought, mate, that leasing land during the COVID pandemic would be the starting point for the call centre gangs to increase their influence. And he goes on. Nowadays everyone blames me alone. No one is taking responsibilities for the issue at hand. Whatever I do, every movement I make is criticized. Even when cooperating with Thai, Myanmar and Chinese authorities to suppress call center gangs, society still views it as mere image building. Yes, mate, because it is. Shi Xi Zhang has also been going on a charm offensive from behind bars. Invited journalists on tours of his city at Shuikoko. Here's how one BBC reporter sees it on a recent tour Quote Shway Koko has been left marooned in post coup war rack Myanmar, unable to bring in the flow of investment and visit as he needs to keep going. Yatai is trying to fix the city's sinister image by allowing journalists to see it, holding out hope that more favorable reporting might even get Shi Zhijiang out of jail. Yatai is vague about the tenants of all its buildings as it is about many things. Quote rich people from many countries, they rent the villas and what about the businesses? Many businesses, hotels, casinos. I mean this article is kind of hilarious because she won't let the reporters look around these giant razor wire compounds which are obviously still for scamming. And when they do speak to someone who has lived there, she just goes into massive detail about how to con old men out of their cash at this point the Burmese civil war seems to have swung in the Tatmadaw's favor, with China backing it against pro democracy groups and the multitude of rebels. The KN has resumed some activities alongside the Tatmadaw in recent months. So despite Sorchit Thu being surrounded by enemies on all sides, Shway Koko might just survive. Here is the New York Times quote as welcome as the US sanctions on Chit Thu may be, it is still too early to predict his demise. A survivor with multiple fingers in multiple dirty pies, he could reach eclectic accommodations and deals with multiple actors to ensure his exposure over scam centers is a temporary setback, a kind of gangland market correction. And I'll end today's show with the latest and possibly the maddest development of all. The border war between Thailand and Cambodia, which has resulted in the deaths of several soldiers, is actually part caused by the scamming black market. These skirmishes kick off in July, ostensibly for a decades old dispute over access to an ancient border Hindu temple. In addition to firefights, however, Thailand's reaction has included a threat to cut off electricity and the Internet to Cambodia, a veiled threat against Cambodian scam operations that, like I said at the top of the show, are worth up to a half of the country's entire GDP. Current estimates are that there are over 100,000 people trapped in compounds across Cambodia with the express permission of its politicians. But don't take it from me. Here's what Nathan Sutherland and Lindsay Kennedy, who work on this stuff day in day out, had to say about how scams are directly causing international conflict.
- [61:40]
Danny Gold
Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast with Benjamin Boster.
- [61:46]
Richard Horsey
If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to.
- [61:58]
Dean Mob
Bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.
- [62:03]
Richard Horsey
Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster.
- [62:27]
Sean Williams
Foreign.
- [62:29]
Danny Gold
I'm Richard Sarrett. Join me on Strange Planet for in depth conversations with the world's top paranormal investigators, alien abductees, Bigfoot trackers, monster hunters, time travelers, alternative archaeologists, remote viewers, and more. As I was on the way to Area 51, I was stopping on the side of the road and just taking measurements and I found this one spot where time slowed down by by a.
- [62:53]
Richard Horsey
Fraction of a second.
- [62:54]
Danny Gold
It's not supposed to do that.
- [62:55]
Dean Mob
From the two big categories, animal mutilations and human abductions, you have to conclude that genetic material is being harvested.
- [63:04]
Danny Gold
Well, I reached for a rifle and I turned and looked and it was.
- [63:08]
Sean Williams
Already moving away and it was descending the bluff.
- [63:11]
Danny Gold
There's no way any human could have went down it. It was probably a 75 degree angle straight down almost. On Richard Sarrit's strange planet, we're redefining reality. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts, do not go any further.
- [63:28]
Dean Mob
Turn around, go home.
- [63:35]
Danny Gold
What if I told you that most of the modern day self help advice you've been hearing could actually make you worse? The key to a better life isn't about feel good gimmicks that sound catchy. The Mentally Stronger podcast gives you access to a licensed therapist who shares science backed tools that will actually change your life. Hi, I'm Amy Morin, psychotherapist, mental strength trainer and international best selling author. In each episode we cover research backed strategies like how to stop relying on willpower and start creating habits for lasting change and the five mental strength building exercises you can do from your couch. I also speak to world class experts like Dr. Nicole Cain who shares how to permanently heal anxiety by addressing the root cause. With over 200 episodes in our catalog, this podcast is for you if you're ready to crush self doubt, conquer challenges and become stronger than ever with therapist approved strategies that can change your life. Listen to Mentally Stronger with therapist Amy Morin wherever you get your podcasts.
- [64:40]
Nathan Sutherland
So those, those, those raids earlier this year looked like they were going to be this like massive sea Change for the scam industry in Myanmar. But the reality is that not much has actually changed on the ground. So those 7,000 people were rescued which are detained, which sounds like an enormous number but when you're looking at possibly 150, maybe 200,000 people involved in the industry over there, it's actually like drop in the ocean. What has happened was an initial clear out of some of Shoeco and some of KK park which are two of the biggest, most notorious compounds. But they've just moved to other new entire city compound states that are being developed further down the river. And then even since then a lot of people have moved back to Shayko Co and into KK Park. What it then allowed them to do is, is to make this big song and dance, make a big push for the Thai and the Chinese authority. So they were doing something push for again those compounds to not be targeting Chinese speakers, Thai speakers and to be trafficking less Thai and Chinese into the compounds. And it also allowed for journalists to come in and walk around Shoko and like pretend that. Well not pretend but like look like it's been been dealt with. But since then the problems just continued. Those parks have just filled up again and other ones have just developed all along the river. Well, the scams have been a big part of the, the build up to this conflict. Then in the last few months scams have come up a lot from, from, from the Thai side who have been accused in Cambodia of essentially running this mafia scam state and massively like the, the ruling family, the Hun foul in Cambodia they have accused, accused them of directly profiting from directly running this, this scam empire. And just before the, the clashes actually began, the Thais issued an arrest warrant for, for Sakong who is one of the biggest scam bosses in Cambodia and even raided a lot of his properties in Thailand and even issued arrest warrants for his kids who also have businesses in Thailand. So the scam stuff was really at the heart of a lot of the tensions between Cambodia and Thailand. Well before like the temple thing actually kicked off into artillery and in gunfire.
- [67:02]
Sean Williams
The thing is though about the, about like the feud over the temples, it does sound like insane if you're not like from this region. But it's not like, but people do like if you, I think what the war is about, if you're like, you know Hun Sen is very different to what the war is about if you're like the average person in Cambodia or Thailand because people do get really, really upset about this and like to the point that. So like, the, the Prime Minister's like Shinawatcher family in, in Thailand have like, for years and years they've had like a really, really good relationship with the Han family. Until this year. They'd never really fallen out before. Even through loads of other border clashes and various different Shina watchers being prime minister over time, they've always managed to get on. But I think it was in 2009 or 2000-8009, Cambodia tried to. Cambodia at first said that they were going to try and get UNESCO recognition for the Prehir Temple. And in Thailand they kind of were like, yeah, sure, we'll back that. That's fine. Like, it's all settled down and people went so insane, like on the, on the right wing, like the right wing that really heavily support the military who see any, any kind of challenge at the border as being like, oh, they're encroaching our territory. It's the end of an empire. My empire is going to take over us again. Like they did a thousand years ago. They went so crazy that they actually stormed the government buildings, laid siege to it for three months, took over the main airport in Bangkok and grounded all flights for weeks and then pushed out the Prime Minister. And they, and they declared war, like, as in like the protest group declared war on the government. So that's how insane it can get for people when it comes to like, kind of clashes at the border. So, like, it's kind of really easy for. It's always been really easy for the Han family and the military in Cambodia, not so much the shin of watchers because they only really care about business to like, stir up all this hatred inside their own country whenever they feel like it. But they normally feel. I think they normally think they can kind of contain it, like unleash it when they want, but they need like, a little bit of like, patriotism and nationalism to drive them on and then put it back in its box and it's not useful. I think this time it's kind of spiraled out of control because this is the first time that it's been personal because the border issue has been kind of mixed in with this whole thing about, like, it's. They're not just taking. They're not just chipping away at our borders. They're not just claiming our temples. They're also. The Cambodians are also built all these scam centers all around the edge of the country. And they're like. And they're scamming us and they're exploiting us and you know, basically they're humiliating us and it's all Han Sen's fault. That's been the narrative, right? So it's the first time that Hun Sen's not been like not been able to separate himself from it. And they, and he kind of like lost his temper with the Shinawatris or with them with their daughter Patton Tan, because he thought that she hadn't done enough to shut up her own people for criticizing him about these scam centers. So kind of like that was like a big, big trigger for why this has escalated the, in the way that it has. But what was like really amazing to watch is every other time there's ever been a skirmish at the border, it stayed in that area, right? It stayed on the northern border. This time almost immediately when the guns started firing, when the missiles started firing, the Thais fired into, into a place in Passat which is like on the southwest of the country, absolutely nowhere near any of these temples. The only thing that is there is a huge scam compound. It's like a mini cake park really, which is owned by what it was developed by a very close ally of the, of the Hun family. And, and the Hun sense nephew has a lot of business interest there is very connected to it. So it was almost like they were saying we're going to, we're going to fire straight into something that's going to hurt you economically to punish you for what's happening at the border and you're not going to say anything about it. Which they didn't. It wasn't until like local people were actually publishing images and of like what happened that the government kind of had to admit this. And even then they were like, oh yeah, they fired on a village, they hit a soldier. They didn't say what had been, what was under attack. Right. And it's been the same, it's been the same with loads of other scam centers all around the country where scam centers have been hit with rockets. And neither side has said we hit a scam center or we hit a casino with a rocket. It's when it's only comes up when like ordinary people have caught it on video or they're talking about it or they're outraged that like there's been damage. But both sides have been really weird about actually admitting what it is they're firing out. Because I think that the minute that obviously Cambodia doesn't want to admit these scam centers exist, the whole thing is that this is all made up and exaggerated. But The Thailand also. The Thai military also doesn't seem to want to admit that they're firing at these places or they know where these compounds are or they know they're full of people. Because I think two things will happen. First of all, they will then have to do another northern Myanmar where everyone, if they get raided, everyone moves through Thailand, and it's a huge burden on them to actually process all those people to get them home. But also, then they lose all their leverage or whatever. They're negotiating quietly with the Huns, whether it's like a cut, whether it's like, don't. Don't use Thai people, whether it's like, stop complaining about what's happening on the border or we're going to keep attacking your scam centers. We don't really know what those negotiations are, but the minute that they. That they kind of acknowledge that these scam centers are there and they need to be dismantled, I think they lose all their leverage with the hunts.
- [72:02]
Dean Mob
So, yeah, that is the tale of how the criminal romance between a bloodthirsty warlord and a Chinese scam kingpin flourished into one of the global underworld's true success stories. And then it pissed off China and Thailand and Europe and the US Caused a refugee crisis and helps stoke an actual international conflict. It's pretty crazy stuff, but if you listen to our other Myanmar shows, I guess shway Coco's just pretty par for the pulse.
- [72:29]
Danny Gold
Yeah, I mean, that. That. That's one of our craziest episodes, I think, ever. And I think that if you guys can somehow just double or triple our patreon, I can get Sean to go undercover at one of these scam centers.
- [72:41]
Dean Mob
Yes, please.
- [72:42]
Danny Gold
And hopefully eventually get him out, too. But we just don't know how long.
- [72:45]
Dean Mob
I do need to shave my hair at some point because I'm getting a little sunroof in the back.
- [72:49]
Danny Gold
The first part I think we could definitely make happen. But yeah, I mean, that. That whole thing is insane. What a diabolical episode. Just like, just. Just insanity. Yeah.
- [73:02]
Dean Mob
Thanks, guys, for listening.
- [73:21]
Danny Gold
It.
- [73:47]
Dean Mob
Sa.
- [74:16]
Danny Gold
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