How thousands of Africans are sequestered in Southeast Asia to defraud Westerners

At first glance, the job offer sounds like a good idea: a mission in an after-sales service in Asia, adequately paid, with accommodation and food costs covered. Except that behind this beautiful announcement hides one of the most massive, violent and lucrative fraud systems of the moment. Thousands of Kenyans, Zambians, Ghanaians and Moroccans have applied for these jobs, officially located in Thailand. When they arrive there, the trip turns into a nightmare. They find themselves sequestered in immense cyberfraud complexes which have mushroomed since 2020 in Southeast Asia, mainly in Burma, Cambodia and Laos. At the heart of these centers, little African hands are held as if in prison. Phones and passports are confiscated, armed men monitor them, and any misdemeanor is violently punished. Their work, forced, consists of a single mission: to scam Westerners. On social networks, Instagram and Tinder in the lead, they pose as young Russian women who have made their fortune in cryptocurrencies, until their target spends her money there, which she will never see again. The scam, called “pig butchering”, would have extorted $57 billion in 2023 (around 52 billion euros). Le Monde was able to obtain the previously unpublished testimony of three young women, former prisoners of these centers. Their story and the documents they were able to collect on site, which Le Monde was able to verify, lift the veil on a system that is as lucrative as it is violent, where the victims themselves often turn into crooks. Also read this survey in text | Article reserved for our subscribers How the Chinese mafia kidnaps Africans to scam Westerners Add to your selections



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