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tv   Close up  Deutsche Welle  January 30, 2024 1:15pm-1:46pm CET

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your on dw up next we have our exclusive documentary exposing allegations of abuse and people traffic in me on my inside a so called scan factory. i'm jared reading building. thank you for watching the can you see what old car tires have to do with the production? here's a hands on the real media watch now on youtube. i was hoping to go and when overseas and one d i was approached. it starts with an attractive job of approval
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and it ends in modern slavery. i cannot just say that i want to pull out the have guns. the come shoot you here in southeast asia, thousands of people of traffic to into secret sites where they are false to scam unsuspecting victims across the globe. i was so shocked to hear how big the company's it's like running a corporation. the only hope a few volunteers, i'm doctor visits to help them escape were coming down but who is behind this 3? so scam factory, we go. so one of the largest is coming operations in south east asia to track down the perpetrators. we followed the money and the let us to a vast criminal network,
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spending the globe he says he used to fight for the cartels and now he fights for the chinese communist party. the in 2022. aaron was finishing his university degree in the country in southern africa when he was recruited by a technology company based in thailand. on google maps, i could see the have different locations, some of them in thailand. i thought everything was legit until i go to bangkok. when i arrived in 5 o'clock, i saw some one was waiting for me with a sign. my name was on it. he took me to a car with 2 other guys. we were supposed
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to go to a hotel that is like maybe 10 minutes away from the airport, but we drove in a different direction instead of a 10 minute ride. aaron was in the car 4 hours. that's when we realized to be, i know going to bind cold. i was so scared the vin, the comp time, that house it's a group is off should and we were told to hide with the picks. we don't
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understand what is happening here. they hide 4 hours under the cover of the dogs that take it into a nearby river. the we must keep down, keep down now we are really afraid the boat came. they put on the box and there are people with guns. they said we should get in the boat and across the room and the rest of the group were brought to a come home surrounded by how it is with fault maia. now that trapped inside this is the river that are in crossed the marie mux, the buddhist separating thailand and me and ma on the the me side. it isn't always
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clear who is in control of the for most of its history, me in law has been ruled by appraisal ministry regime. but here at the eastern boulder with thailand on groups of the korean, the ethnic minority have fought for the independence. but the decade ago, the reality on the ground changed. some groups still fight the government. but others have made a deal with the means military. today, these former rebels form the official border guard forces. and in exchange they are free to pursue their own business interests. k, k cox, this is where are in this taken to thousands of traffic here and full to scam people in china. the western europe there are a few compounds like this in the area. but this one is the most notorious and
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the most secretive lined palm soldiers go up the engine susan cctv cameras everywhere. the we reviewed the exclusive images taken from within the compound and spoke to several victims who were held here. they will recognize the badges on the golf uniforms. they all the ins and take me up the folder called forces the fuller rebel to change science. the one thing is clear, soldiers from me and most of the called falls are present in k tape hawk. the intake, hey puck, our needs lucas from western africa. he was a little so traffic to him to the compound. they received detailed
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instructions on how to scan people. upon arriving up to compound, we reviewed several of these manuals, and they casually explain how to build trust and exploit weaknesses and the so called clients, such as be funding, make clients fall in love with you, so deeply that they forget at for thank. and sometimes it is the need for loans and sometimes it has the need to connect with others what i leave. we don't have a lot of asian population. i was talking with some asian people online. and i met this ation person. he told me he's from california. nora is a chinese immigrants in the western country. after awhile this guy,
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he says, we have this type of crypto currency. i want to to learn how quick the currency works. so and, and this person was so kind and she said, i'm going to teach you the crypto currencies like bitcoin are increasingly popular as investments. the risk is high, but so the margins for profit, they are largely unregulated and transactions are difficult to trace that goal. so it makes them attractive for organized crime. so i chose, so this person and, you know, i, i let him teach me. if you're investing the website, you can see a funds there. you can take out the money. the scamarus grew the victims of them for months and to sway them to invest more and more. laura, so the website was legitimate. she believed she exchange test savings for a lucrative investment. but instead of money went to a crypto wallet,
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the equivalent of a digital account controlled by the scammers. i wanted to withdraw a couple of $1000.00 in. i couldn't withdraw them. and this person was, was pushing me to invest more money into, into this crypto currency. the website has suddenly down the sky and it goes silent . and your money is going this form is scamming as cold pick, butchering the sky most sutton's the victim. and then goes in for the slaughter and do less wondering why is this person doing this to me? off to being scammed, nora starts with a volunteer group to help others scammed victims. but then something unexpected happened. we thought that everybody in this skim industry is a criminal, always a bad person until one day someone reached out to us and said you had been traffic
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to into this skim compile. and i was so shocked to hear how big the company's it's like running a cooperation, the people of traffic in from all over the world. but several sources confirms that the pulses and the compound are chinese. they track screen time on work phones and randomly inspect rooms secure to us checking our computers, seeing if we have the natural or plain lucas, an errand received financial targets. numbers of clients to be contacted, an amount of money to be scammed. if there is no client with no, no lunch, if someone checks and you didn't reply to a client, the beat to all make you stand for hours. we work 17 hours a day. no complains,
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no holidays, no risk. and if we say we want to leave, they tell us that we've set us or she loves the the last night, i got a message from, from somebody inside the compound saying, i think i'm gonna get out tomorrow, right? judah, i'm michelle aide. work is on the toys side of the buddha. they helped traffic to victims escape from these fruitful comb pounds. today a group of victims reached out from what i understand. the majority of them have just being disruptive. they have for kids to work. that's a problem. magic to the buses, and so you've refused to work, so then they're going to sell you to another come pounds. when victims,
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i'll transfer to another. sometimes they also go through thailand because the roads are foster, i'm say, so this is judah and michelle's own neutrons to intercept the group. not every rescue is successful and not every rescue or case provides you with the opportunity to actually tracking into steps. if assign goes dot, because chase that goes around town, i need to let them as soon as they can, because if they stop at a traffic light, it's the chance to get out is not responsive, 713, and his update. or if it's live tracking hasn't updated for 1112 the story of these scam of factories begins and beijing with a grandiose announcement for me and we stand ready to join people around the
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world to build the built in road initiative that move in 2013 china is head of state she, jean king announced a massive investment program abroad. the belgian road initiative was intended to link china closer to global trade. one of its biggest target countries was me in month it was the opening shop for chinese investors to rush and build out infrastructure in this impoverished country. but it was also an opportunity for a much shady business here in korean state near the table with a whole new city sprung up within years destined to be asia's new gambling destination. for chinese clients, the gambling is illegal and mainland china and most of south east asia. but here, and this will total cost of me in my nobody is looking this promotional video shows what the $1000000000.00 investments would look like
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for a gigantic gambling town on the border. the chinese business men should judge young as seems, finding the project next to him. the head of the former rebels turned both accounts . the chinese government reports initially hailed this project as an integral part of bilson road emissions. only when reports of wide spread organized for which sprang up to phasing distance itself. just 2 years later, a few columbus su styles the same solemn scenes say you, she got a placement to become another gambling destination. the visionary, one quite coy and notorious, crying both from a cow present at the groundbreaking ceremony. or he also goes by the
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nickname, broken to this k, k polk, the scam compound life, just in the middle of these 2 cuz he knows disease. but he is, there is no public opening ceremony. those behind it remained. a mystery. room is such late that one of these 2 chinese investors could be behind this cruel operation. but so far, proof remains elusive. hour and then lucas spend several months in k, k. polk, as time pauses, they become increasingly desperate. after the said no salary, we started to complain and then we refused to wake, and suddenly they must pack the bags. i had been saying they would sell us to
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a place the northern me in my work, those who are of no use to the pulse is also the result of the criminal groups. aaron lucas and others are taken to the banks of the marie to hide the traces. they are forced to switch calls several times and waits in shacks along the river. once they cross to the ties side track because we'll take them to the north standby. they're in town and they're like literally if we had tons down that straight, there was the end of the straight up the river right there. you just don't want to drive down to, you know, you judah and michelle are close to the victims, but intercepting now would be too dangerous. they don't know if the traffic has the
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last message says we're in a bunker after there we go. what's down the end of that reason? it's a really small little narrow road too. so he didn't say he just started sending that live vacation from that one message that we got could be in a van could be in a house. i say in my thing, he's like pins back into one of those houses. okay. i'll turn around and come back. okay, head out on that straight it
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right there. right down the street behind and we just we just drive past the united nations. also some drugs and crime estimate step so cold pick butchering scams in southeast asia generate more revenue than the drug trade. take a pocket load and makes tens of millions of yours a month. we followed the money trailer from several scammed victims to see where it leads like laura, they invested the money in a fake crypto currency site. and on witching lead transferred the funds to a wallet used by scammers. to hide its trace criminals rerouted the money until it reached wallace. k. k. pop uses to pull the defrauded funds. these wallets then made several direct transfers to other accounts,
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including this one. millions of yours was encrypt or passed through it. we were able to identify and corroborate that this one that was opened by this chinese business man based in bangkok during the time the cash was flowing long. each one was the vice president of the tie, a trade association located in this building on the fringes of fine cock. this is also the building of the chinese association, the overseas human culture exchange center. both the location i'm the sense that came into the focus of title storage season 2023. its in february, police raided the building on suspicion of serving as a from to organized crime, along with another cultural association in bangkok using the same name home and
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the home men were a chinese secret society, dating back to china's imperial era. with time they developed links with organized crime and close ties with chinese triads. triads of both criminal networks with thousands of members. they operate globally and are involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, and other criminal activity. went home and does is it takes a lot of the symbolism, a lot of the stories of the chinese under world under popularized is them. this is jason tower, a leading expos on organized crime and asia. the scamming operation stemming out of k k talk trace back to a complex network of businesses and associations, used by well connected criminals to legitimize the crimes
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and they all lead to one truman and shake a broken shoes. here we can see some visiting the type problems of the home, minnesota creation, the same one that was rated by local police broke into this rose to power in the eighty's and ninety's as a member of the full team k try out. one of the home comes largest guns, notorious for his ruthlessness he took over as the 14 k lead to a neighboring macau, at the time ages gambling capital. but the failed assassination of a prosecute to lead to his arrest. he spent more than a decade in jail. when he was released in 2012 times had changed. the cow had been handed over to mainland china, the mass, your pulse, re branded himself as a patriotic business man. he invested in crypto currencies, casinos, and real estate, all over asia and even named to be
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a brand off the home and never missing an opportunity to show his support for china and the communist policy. we must jointly support the cause of national unification and support the great renaissance of attorney mains nation sitting side. one can play also has a, a quote that he uses fairly regular. literally he says, he used to fight for the car towels and now he fights for the chinese communist party in 2018, broken to, to establish the world human history of culture association, an organization that has since spread its presence across the globe to use lights are broken choose, and his homeland association was sanctioned by the united states. in the
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announcement they drew links between broken twos, the chinese communist policy and bilson wrote investments. china has denied these allegations it says i'm clear whether the sanctions had any impact on broken tooth businesses. from bangkok, his network continues to expand from southeast asia to africa, the middle east, and even north america. we really see that these criminal networks are becoming more and more powerful, more and more influential and more and more in added in different countries around the world. and the efforts by law enforcement are really only touching the tip of the iceberg. at this point, the group of traffic victims having formed judah and michelle that they have been put some taxes and on now driving to an unknown location. now is that sounds too
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into saturday. we're going to be looking guys for a vehicle and we're looking for a tech to see what the license quite 95 yellow and blue coming up on that side of the right. that could be them right there. 965. so it's probably $65000600.00. that's the river, right there guys. just the bridge. the show that we're on top of them on the right. sorry. so i think that's i've got the yellow and blue. yeah. and it's, and he's kind of from $65.00, but i mean literally was sitting of the traffic lights to get up so can we tell them, or if they can run the
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i'm gonna say that everyone's probably heading in the same direction to the same hotel where just that we just saw the traffic light. okay, where behind the yellow taxi they turned down a side street. like i feel like the okay i can see where they're at. i know we try to tell the rep can you say it? can you say it on the pin? yep. so where just one straight in front of it. they're behind. i can see where they're at. yeah, yeah, yeah. we're coming down the section the
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the, i think we're gonna get a minute. okay. the we have to get the transferred, the
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judah and michelle bring the victims to a safe house when they explain what will happen next will start to use will either recognize them as victims of human trafficking and repack, treat them home, or charge them with violating immigration laws, which might mean more time behind balls this time in an official detention center. you never actually switch off then you try to give the victims a chance to it's a painful a chance to kind of breeze. um for the 1st time, perhaps in 8910 months they've ever taken a breast we give them afraid for the stan leverts happen to think is anyone gonna turn up? that's how we going to be court. is there going to be something that comes in optim
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off? just moments of risk probably to the last 2 or 3 days. then they must report to the ortiz. it was not an easy experience. and i hope i can go back to my country and find a job that i was graduated for. to start a new life, the
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the, enjoying the views, and come to take a look at this. i'll tell you the highlights. every week inbox, subscribe. now i think on the line, yes and do you belong to the 77 percent comfortable? i just got and 65 last last those top 5 years, 3 reasons why one wants to think we are here to help you make up your mind. we are here on please find your mind. so we got all the topics to chunk couple top fixed, a new culture, and in 15 minutes, let's say together,
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parts of our community life on the research is now on the top. the immersive art is appearing everywhere. color for expeditions, skittering digital art installations have proven extremely popular with the public . in theory, these exhibition should allow us to fully sink into the art. so how well do they work in practice? it can, they turn us all into art lovers. here's one example of immersive arch me by turkish american artist. speak an adult, but before we get into his work, let's go over the basics immersive art one. 0 one. what exactly is it immersive comes from the latin word mercy o, which means to plunge into many are already familiar with immersion from the game world in virtual reality. when executed successfully you feel like you're right in the middle.

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