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This report was written by James Lee and published in Hong Kong Free Press on January 12, 2025, and was updated with an additional report on January 13 and 16, 2025. The following edited version is published as part of a content partnership agreement.
To one Hongkonger, it seemed like a dream job — a purchasing agent transporting goods from Thailand to Japan. It quickly became a nightmare.
Upon arriving in Thailand last summer to pick up the “products,” the Hongkonger had their identity documents seized and was driven across the border into Myanmar.
Days later, a relative of the victim, who uses the pseudonym Kelvin, got a call. In Mandarin, the voice on the other end of the line demanded a USD 500,000 ransom for his family member’s release from the “scam farm” where the victim was being forced to work, rarely able to talk to their families.
“But we don’t have that kind of money,” Kelvin told reporters on January 8 before submitting a petition for help to the Thai consulate in Hong Kong.
The plight of his relative is not uncommon.
The case of mainland Chinese actor Wang Xing who was swiftly found by Thai and Chinese authorities within a week after going missing, inspired a sliver of hope, said Andy Yu, a former district councilor with the now-disbanded Civic Party who has been helping six families over trafficking cases.
Wang went missing along Thailand’s border with Myanmar on January 3, and his girlfriend wrote on Weibo about his disappearance on January 5. Following exchanges between Thai and Chinese authorities, the Chinese actor was rescued on January 7 and returned back to China on January 10.
Kelvin hoped the authorities could also take action to help his relative:
I urge the Hong Kong government to more actively engage with mainland authorities, as diplomatic affairs fall under the purview of the central government. [Wang’s] rescue only took a few days from the time his case was reported. I can’t say that it was because he was well known and attracted a lot of attention, but my family member is an ordinary citizen that no one would take notice of. I hope the Thai government will help my family member and rescue them as soon as possible.
A rise in human trafficking
Cases of Hongkongers being trafficked to Myanmar have risen in recent months, following a widely reported surge in 2022.
Along with other forms of transnational crime, human trafficking has surged since Myanmar’s military ousted the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi administration in 2021, triggering a civil war with ethnic armed militias.
Since then, the country has become the world’s leading hotbed for transnational crime, according to the Global Organized Crime Index.
Wendy, whose family member is also being held in Myanmar, shared the same frustrations as Kelvin:
As ordinary citizens, we have experienced almost half a year without being able to save [our family members], and we are really helpless. It’s good that some people have been rescued, but as family members, the more we see such successful cases, the more helpless we feel.
Scam syndicates
Several victims were lured into the trafficking schemes through one-off “jobs” that were fronts for human trafficking, the former district councilor Yu told reporters on January 8.
Victims usually took these jobs through social media or messaging platforms including Telegram. Some were referred via friends, Yu earlier told HKFP, though he was not sure if those friends were aware they were promoting a trafficking scheme.
Traffickers had adopted new tactics, he said, by telling targets that the jobs would be in Taiwan or Japan — both popular holiday destinations for Hongkongers — in hopes they would drop their guard.
Wendy’s family member, S, has been in Myanmar for more than four months. Using a pseudonym over fears S might be identified, Wendy said she was able to track a phone signal to Thailand and later to Myanmar after S managed to call home.
“I could hear the fear in [their] voice,” Wendy, herself using a pseudonym, told HKFP in a phone interview.
S has been forced to work at one of Myanmar’s notorious scam farms on the country’s southern border for more than four months. Victims of several nationalities are forced to conduct romance scams online and risk physical punishment if they fail to meet their captors’ goals.
Based on messaging records found on a computer belonging to S, Wendy deduced that S had been texting a Hong Kong number about a work trip to Thailand as a purchasing agent before flying out. S was supposed to pick up a package in Thailand and then fly to Japan.
Ransoms or diplomatic channels?
S and Kelvin’s relative are among at least 12 Hongkongers held captive in Myanmar as of the end of 2024.
A total of 28 cases had been reported to Hong Kong authorities since mid-2024, of whom 16 had returned to Hong Kong, according to the Security Bureau. Security chief Chris Tang told lawmakers last month the authorities would “provide full assistance” to bring the victims home, but gave no details as to how.
In 2022, 46 Hong Kong residents sought help from the government after they were trafficked to Southeast Asia and put to work. As of November, all but three of those had returned to Hong Kong, according to the Security Bureau.
Those figures did not inspire confidence, Wendy said, because Hong Kong authorities had not specified whether the returnees had secured their freedom through diplomatic channels or by paying the ransoms often asked of them.
After S was found texting their family WhatsApp group, Wendy said their captors demanded a USD 500,000 ransom for their release — the same sum demanded of Kelvin. However, paying the equivalent of HKD 4 million was out of the question because her family had no way to scrape those funds together. She added:
Even if we could, there’s no guarantee that the traffickers would hand S over.
S and Kelvin’s family members could be in several compounds along Myanmar’s southern border, including the KK Park project, the Dongmei Zone, or the Shwe Kokko new city project.
The Karen Border Guard Force, now renamed the Karen National Army (KNA) in an apparent attempt to distance itself from the coup forces it was previously allied with, is linked to all three zones. According to a report by an activist group, Justice for Myanmar, scam farms run by the KNA have been linked to Chinese criminal syndicates.
Corporate filings from Myanmar released by a non-profit whistle-blower site, Distributed Denial of Secrets, last year also revealed the involvement of Hong Kong-registered firms in the projects.
Pulling strings
Beijing cracked down on the crime syndicates last year, forcing scam centers in the north of Myanmar to hand over Chinese nationals, most of whom were victims of trafficking schemes. As of April, some 45,000 people had been repatriated, according to the United States Institute of Peace.
However, Wendy has heard nothing definitive since she took S’s case to the police and the Immigration Department, who contacted Interpol, as well as the Thai and Myanmar authorities. Hong Kong’s diplomatic issues are handled by mainland Chinese authorities.
Ultimately, Beijing could leverage its economic interests in Myanmar and its relations with both the coup government and the ethnic armed militias, said Debby Chan, a lecturer at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy. Chan told HKFP in an email:
The mass deportation operations of Chinese scammers from Myanmar to China showcased Beijing’s influence on the military-affiliated ethnic armed groups. Beijing could pull its strings to achieve its strategic goals even in a volatile political environment in Myanmar.
In response to the petition, the Hong Kong Security Bureau sent a task force to Thailand:
In view of recent developments, SB officials will lead members of the dedicated task force from the Hong Kong Police Force and the Immigration Department to Thailand today (January 12) to further follow-up on the request for assistance cases.
The task force met with officials from the Chinese embassy in Thailand, representatives from the Ministry of Justice of Thailand sitting on an anti-trafficking committee, and other Thai authorities.
On January 14, one of the trafficking victims, who had been detained for almost 4 months, was released after the family paid a ransom to the criminal group.
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Previously Published on globalvoices.org with Creative Commons License
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Photo Credit: Chinese actor Wang Xing who disappeared on January 3 near Thailand’s border with Myanmar, was rescued by Thai authorities within days after Beijing’s diplomatic intervention. Screenshot from ABS-CBN news channel on YouTube.
The post Families of Hongkongers Trapped in Myanmar ‘Scam Farms’ Ask for Diplomatic Intervention appeared first on The Good Men Project.