Massive toll on scam victims

Earlier this year I came to know about human-trafficking victim Gan Jiea Jie, who at 19 was forced into working scams.

During his 10-month ordeal in Myanmar, he was exposed to the inner workings of international scam syndicates at three centres.

These scam centres operate like corporations or revenue centres; they are headed by a chief executive officer, general manager, managers, supervisors, team leaders and translators.

Their sole objective is to “squeeze as much money” from each victim who can be from any part of the world – the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Malay­sia or Singapore.

Scammers produce fake court documents to freeze people’s accounts and use intimidation tactics on their victims, who are usually elderly.

The syndicates even use artificial intelli­gence (AI) to mimic a police officer in a police station.

Kingpins behind these billion-dollar industry are brutal to their workers.

If the workers do not meet daily targets of US$50,000 (RM210,000), they will be beaten, chained, handcuffed, kept in cages and even zapped with stun guns.

GanJiea Jie speaks about his ordeal in Myanmar and Thailand after being scammed to work in call centres there.

These syndicates possess personal information of thousands of people around the world.

They also have an endless number of mule accounts in various countries to quickly move money around.

Mule accounts are opened by an individual who gives control of the accounts (access to online banking or ATM cards) to a syndicate, which then pays the account holder between RM500 and RM1,000 each month.

Photographs via organisations such as Malaysia Inter­national Humanitarian Organisation (MHO) show these scam centres are flourishing and expanding their operations, including building many new structures in the interior of Myanmar.

They are equipped with air-conditioned call centres and facilities like karaoke centres, recreational facilities, prostitution dens, bars and canteens.

“Employees”, who come from various Asian countries, are not allowed to leave the sprawling complexes with high walls or fences, which are usually guarded by men in military uniform.

Gan was lucky as he was able to escape during a transit trip to Cambodia with his Malaysian syndicate boss.

Gan surrendered to the Thai police and was sentenced by a Thai court for overstaying. As he had no documents, he was de­­tained at an immigration centre in Thai­­land before being repatriated recently.

He lost more than 1.5 years of his life and his body bears scars of torture.

There are many Malaysians who have been duped by scam centre bosses, who lure them to Thailand with promises of high-paying jobs and then force them into a world of crime across the border.

MHO’s records show that dozens of Malaysians are stuck in such call centres in Myanmar – there are at least three women among them. Some have been tortured for over two years.

Some of these victims reach out to MHO regularly to get them out but the bounty on their heads, at about US$50,000 (RM210,000) each, is too much.

Those who manage to flee are then stuck in Thailand’s detention centres. Without about RM2,000 to cover the flight ticket or fines, they will be stuck at the centres indefinitely.

There are two extreme views of these human-trafficking victims.

Gan, who went to Thailand in search of quick money, was perceived as problema­tic because he had joined gangs and had been disowned by his parents.

However, nobody should be trapped by syndicates that prey on the vulnerable by luring them with a promise of a better life, only to force them into modern-day sla­very where they end up working almost 18 hours daily to pay off their debts.

A new study released by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance shows that scammed Malaysians suffered the second-highest losses in South-East Asia after Singapore, with each victim losing an average of US$1,035 (RM4,350) – this should be a wake-up call for everyone, including the government.

Governments need to pool their resour­ces to combat this menace, which is ex­­pected to worsen with the use of technology and AI.

As the chair of Asean, Malaysia can exert more pressure on the Myanmar government.

Other steps to protect our nationals from being lured overseas by syndicates include taking proactive steps at all international airports in Malaysia by getting authorities to thoroughly screen Malay­sians travelling to “high-risk countries” like Myanmar, Cambodia and Thai­land.

Travellers should be able to show return air tickets, hotel bookings and how much cash they are carrying if they say they are going on a holiday.

Also, Malaysian agencies such as the police, Bank Negara and Malaysian Com­munications and Multimedia Com­mis­­­sion should emulate Singapore’s move to curtail mule accounts.

Beginning next month, those who have been warned, prosecuted or convicted or are under investigation for mule-related offences may be barred from registering new phone lines and restricted from accessing banking and national authentication services.

The new measures are part of a joint effort by the Singapore police, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Info­comm Media Development Authority and Government Technology Agency of Singa­pore (GovTech) to restrict mules from accessing facilities that can be exploited to facilitate scams.

Under Singapore’s laws, mule-related criminal offences involve the misuse of facilities such as bank, payment, national identity or telecommunications company accounts to facilitate fraud.

In Malaysia, drastic steps need to be taken to clamp down on all scam syndicates.

If the Government continues to adopt a “business as usual” attitude, many more −especially senior citizens − will lose their life savings.