<
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/02/scam-state-multi-billion-dollar-industry-south-east-asia>
"For days before the explosions began, the business park had been emptying out.
When the bombs went off, they took down empty office blocks and demolished
echoing, multi-cuisine food halls. Dynamite toppled a four-storey hospital,
silent karaoke complexes, deserted gyms and dorm rooms.
So came the end of KK Park, one of south-east Asia’s most infamous “scam
centres”, press releases from Myanmar’s junta declared. The facility had held
tens of thousands of people, forced to relentlessly defraud people around the
world. Now, it was being levelled piece by piece.
But the park’s operators were long gone: apparently tipped off that a crackdown
was coming, they were busily setting up shop elsewhere. More than 1,000
labourers had managed to flee across the border, and some 2,000 others had been
detained. But up to 20,000 labourers, likely trafficked and brutalised, had
disappeared. Away from the junta’s cameras, scam centres like KK park have
continued to thrive.
So monolithic has the multi-billion dollar global scam industry become that
experts say we are entering the era of the “scam state”. Like the narco-state,
the term refers to countries where an illicit industry has dug its tentacles
deep into legitimate institutions, reshaping the economy, corrupting
governments and establishing state reliance on an illegal network.
The raids on KK Park were the latest in a series of highly publicised
crackdowns on scam centres across south-east Asia. But regional analysts say
these are largely performative or target middling players, amounting to
“political theatre” by officials who are under international pressure to crack
down on them but have little interest in eliminating a wildly profitable
sector."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
