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tv   Close up  Deutsche Welle  January 31, 2024 8:30am-9:01am CET

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and the doctor, so in the clouds it, it's time to, to us. and then when generations class this week on the d w, the i was hoping to go and when overseas and one d i was approached. it starts with an attractive job of, uh abroad. and it ends in modern slavery. i kind of just see 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 forced to scam unsuspecting victims across the globe. i was so shocked to hear how big the
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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 rachel scam factory? we go to the, one of the largest scamming operations in southeast asia to track down the perpetrators. we followed the money and it let us to a vast criminal network, spending the globe he says he used to fight for the cartels and now he fights for the chinese communist part of the. the in 2022 aaron was finishing his university degree in the country in southern africa when he was
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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 selected until i go to bangkok. when i arrived in my car, i saw someone was waiting for me with a sign my name or something. it took me to a car with 2 other guys. we were suppose 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
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vin, the comp time to to house. it's a group is off should and we were told to hide with picks. we don't understand what is happening here. they hide 4 hours under the cover of the dogs that taken to a nearby river the . we must keep down. keep down now we are really afraid the boat came. they put
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top box in the 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 highlands with bob lawyer. now that trapped inside this is the river that are in crossed the marie much the buddhist separating thailand and me and ma on the the me side. it isn't always clear who is in control of the for most of its history. me and ma 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,
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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 the most secretive line, the palm soldiers go up the entrances and cctv cameras on every way 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
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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 in moscow called forth a present in k tape hawk, the intake. hey puck iron meets lucas from western africa. he was also traffic to into the compound they received detailed instructions on how to scan people. upon arriving up to compound, we reviewed several of these manuals, and they casually explained 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 1st thing. and sometimes it is the need for loans and sometimes it has the need to connect with
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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, 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 he said, i'm going to teach you the crypto currencies like bitcoin are increasing the 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. the so i chose,
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so this person and you know i, i left him teach me. you're investing the website, you can see a funds there. you can pick 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 lucrative investment. but instead of money went to a crypto wallet, the equivalent of a digital account controlled by the scammers. i wanted to withdraw a couple of $1000.00 in. i could then withdraw them. and this person was, was pushing me to invest more money into, into this crypto currency. the websites has suddenly down the sky. mother goes silent and your money is going. this fullness scamming is called pick,
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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 the crewmen, though, is a bad person until one day someone reached out to us and said he had been traffic to into this skim comp time. and i was so shocked to hear how big the companies, it's like running a cooperation, the people of traffic in from all over the world. but several sources confirms that the pulses in the compound are chinese. they track screen time, i'm luck,
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phones and randomly inspect rooms. secure to us checking our computers, seeing if we are d natural or plain lucas, an errand received financial targets, numbers of clients to be contacted and the amount of money to be scammed. if there is no client that no no lunch, if someone checks and you didn't reply to atlanta, the be to all make you stand for hours. we work 17 hours a day. no complains, 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 tie you side of the buddha. they help traffic to
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victims escape from these fruitful compounds. 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 same problem magic to the buses and so you've refused to work. so then they're going to sell you to another compound when victims are transferred to another. sometimes they also go through thailand because the roads of foster, i'm say, so this is judah and michelle's only chance 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 assigned 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,
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it's the chance to get out. there's not response, that's $713.00 and his update. or if it's live tracking hasn't updated for 1112 the story of these scams. factories begins in beijing with a grandiose announcement for me and we stand ready to join people around the world to build the built in rhode initiative that you move in 2013 china is head of staging. p announced a massive investment program abroad. the belts in rhode initiative was intended to link which i next know, so it's a global trade. one of its biggest target countries was me in month it was the opening shop for chinese investors to russian built outs infrastructure, and this impoverished country. but it was also an opportunity for
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a much shady business here in korean states 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 in 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 for a gigantic gambling town on the border. the chinese businessman should judge young as seems signing the project next to him. the head of the former rebels turned board accounts. the chinese government reports initially hailed this project as an integral part of bilson wrote emissions only when reports of wide
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spread organized for which sprang up to phasing distance itself. just 2 years later, a few kilometers as due south, 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 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
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operation, but so far, proof remains elusive. hour and then lucas spends 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 work, or suddenly they must pack the bags. i had been saying they would sell us to a place the northern me in my luck. 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, traffic hills will take them to the north standby. they're
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in town and they're like, literally if we had tons down that straight, there was the end of the street right there. you just don't want to drive down to judah and michelle look shows to the victims, but intercepting now would be too dangerous. they don't know if the traffic has the um 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 the house. i say in
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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 a hi there, right down the street behind and we just, we just bypass the, the united nations also some drugs and crime estimates step so called pick, butchering scans and 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
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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 wallets k. k pop uses to pull the defrauded funds. these wallets then made several direct transfers to other accounts, 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
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a chinese association. the overseas homeland culture exchange center. the location i'm the sense that came into the focus of title storage sees in 2023. this in february, police raided the building on suspicion of serving as a from to for organized crime. along with another cultural association in bangkok using the same name, home and 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. what home and does is it takes
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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 and they all lead to one from an shriek, a broken tooth 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
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a neighboring macau. at the time ages gambling capital for the failed assassination of a prosecute to let 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 boss, 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 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
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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 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,
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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 into saturday. we're going to be looking guys for a vehicle and we're looking for a tech see with a lot since quite $95.00 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. the bridge the
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it does show that we're on top of them on the right there. so i think that's i've got the yellow and blue. yeah. and it's, and he's kind of frame 65, but i mean literally was sitting of the traffic lights to get up so can we tell them, or if they can run the i'm gonna say that everyone's probably heading in the same direction to the same hotel. we're 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
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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 section the the, i think we're gonna get a minute. okay. the
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we have to get the partner transferred, the 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 falls this time in an official detention center.
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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 breath. give them afraid for the stan leverts happen to think, is anyone gonna turn up and how are we going to be caught? is there going to be something that comes in optim off this moments of risk probably to the last 2 or 3 days. then they must report to the parties. 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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