Is China Really Powerless to Stop the ‘Scamdemic’? The Truth Is More Complex

Pale, gaunt, and with a freshly shaved head, Chinese actor Wang Xing sat flanked by Thai police in the border town of Mae Sot on Jan. 7 to discuss his terrifying ordeal. The 31-year-old had flown to Bangkok for what he thought was a meeting with Thai movie executives. Instead, he was trafficked across the border to wartorn Myanmar’s lawless Myawaddy region, where he was forcibly put to work conducting online scams.

“The environment was very dangerous,” Wang said on a video filmed on his flight home published by Chinese media. “I can’t sleep. I didn’t even have time to pee.”


It’s a story so common these days as to barely warrant a shrug in law enforcement circles. Experts estimate that more than 220,000 trafficking victims from over 100 countries ranging from Ghana and Nigeria to Brazil and the UAE are held in “pig-butchering” scam operations—so named after fattening a hog for slaughter—in Myanmar and Cambodia alone. Many of the trafficking victims are young, tech-savvy graduates from regions where unemployment rates are high.

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