A border fence seperating China and Myanmar in the county-level city of Ruili in Dehong prefecture, in China's southwestern Yunnan Province, on Jan. 14, 2023. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)
An internet scam dubbed “pig butchering,” run by Chinese crime syndicates in Southeast Asia may have ties with the Chinese communist regime, China watchers say, especially in light of the regime’s history.
The syndicates—operating in countries bordering southern China, including Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar—use trafficked “cyber slaves” to scam internet users.
A report titled “A Criminal Cancer Spreads in Southeast Asia,” released by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a U.S. Congress-funded think tank, on June 26, details “pig butchering (Sha Zhu Pan)” which began as illegal online gambling in China in 2018.
“Pig butchering” implies the scam’s process of “fatten[ing] targets before slaughtering them.” Once the scammer determines that the victim has invested all their financial resources, the “pig will be slaughtered,” and the scammer disappears with the victim’s money.
The report pointed out that after having driven out of China, Chinese criminal bosses have taken control of Shwe Kokko, a new township in Karen State bordering Thailand, allying themselves with the Myanmar Border Guard Force under the Burmese military. Now Shwe Kokko has become “a safe zone for crime” and “a hub of drugs and sex-trafficking that funds the military regime with dirty money.”
‘Stirring up the World’
In an interview with The Epoch Times on June 30, Ye Zhiqiu, a media worker living in New Zealand, said these Chinese criminal organizations are likely to be backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) due to their unusual strength in cooperating with the local military in Myanmar.
These Chinese criminal syndicates originate from China and have their soil in CCP-ruled society, Mr. Ye said.
“In China, criminal organizations can’t grow without an official protective umbrella. CCP is essentially a triad, colluding between police, officials, and criminals.
“[the criminal] backbone is often the CCP officials and government departments,” he said.
But the CCP would consider driving these criminals out of China for its own interests, said Mr. Ye, citing that Beijing fears it would negatively impact the performance of officials in the long run and corruption and crime will damage its regime.
Moreover, leaving criminal groups to run amok abroad is “a way [for the CCP] to achieve its goal of stirring up the world,” Ye said.
Using the Digital World
China watcher Shi Shan told The Epoch Times on June 30 that the CCP tried to crack down on cyber fraud domestically for the past years but failed.
“I think now it [the CCP] probably pitch in making use of them [cyber fraud criminals], that is, incorporate them into its [CCP] organization,” he said.
The CCP has infiltrated and expanded its influence abroad through high-tech social platforms such as TikTok, along with data theft and cyber hacking. Now cyber fraud may also be an effective tool for the CCP, according to Shi.
Jason Tower, a co-author of the report and director of USIP’s Burma research, told VOA on June 28 that these cyber frauds initially targeted Chinese citizens and now are committing crimes against U.S. citizens and people from Europe, Japan, and many other countries worldwide.
As of early 2022, cyber fraud crimes have been characterized as a “global security threat,” victimizing nationals of more than 46 countries, the USIP report said.
CCP’s Link with Triads
Transnational criminal organizations with many ethnic Chinese members are often considered a “triad.”
The CCP has a long history of using criminal forces. A report of the Indo-Pacific Defence Forum on Feb. 4, 2022, indicated that Beijing has deep links with organized crimes and triad, undermining democracies and threatening regional stability.
In Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, CCP officials have demonstrated a willingness to work directly with organized Chinese crime groups that support Beijing’s goals.
In October 1984, then-communist leader Deng Xiaoping stated that the CCP was prepared to work with organized criminals if they favored the communist regime. He noted that “the Chinese triads have patriotic members” and “many good people” and that it protected senior Chinese officials overseas.
Tao Siju, former Minister of Public Security, told the media, “There was an organization like the Triad, and they sent out 800 people to protect our national leaders.” Tao was pointing to American triads that kept Deng and his party safe during Deng’s visit to the United States from Jan. 28 to Feb. 5, 1979, the first-ever in 30 years after China-U.S. broke off diplomatic relations, according to a report in the Hong Kong media Ming Pao, on April 24, 2016.
Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Jan. 31, 1979, in the White House in Washington during Deng's U.S. visit. (Consolidated Pictures/AFP via Getty Images)
Tao said again that “there are also patriots in the triads” when he was in charge of security for the handover of sovereignty in Hong Kong in 1997. His words were seen as part of Beijing’s efforts to unify and recruit Hong Kong triads to ensure a smooth handover.
‘Communist Bandit’
The CCP has been regarded as a “communist bandit” since its founding and even its officials admitted this.
The Chinese language version of The Epoch Times reported on June 13, 2018, about a video posted on the official Weibo account of a newspaper, which is sponsored by the Shaanxi Provincial Committee, a community secretary in Zhen’an county, Shangluo City of the province, yelling at local residents that “the CCP is the largest triad; you must obey and do what it commands you to do.”
The “Nine Commentaries on The Communist Party,” an editorial of The Epoch Times in November 2014, stated that the CCP is a triad group combining all kinds of criminal methods from ancient to modern times.
“In today’s China, ethics and morality have deteriorated beyond recognition. Shoddy products, prostitution, drugs, conspiracies between officials and gangs, organized crime syndicates, gambling, and bribery — corruption is prevalent. The CCP has ignored such moral decay, while many high-ranking officials are the back-room bosses extorting protection fees from fearful people,” it reads.
The editorial cited Cai Shaoqing, an expert studying mafia and crime organizations at Nanjing University, saying that “the number of organized crime members in China totals at least one million. Each captured syndicate figure always exposes some corrupt communists who are government officials, judges, or police operating out of the public view.”
Not only within China, “They [the CCP] will use the triads to infiltrate the world,” Shi said, “and in the future, this [the CCP] could be more devastating to the world than the Russian mob.”
