All posts tagged: Myanmar;Burma

A Times Reporter Goes Inside a Cyberscam Center in a War Zone

A Times Reporter Goes Inside a Cyberscam Center in a War Zone

Holy moly. Look at these phones. The floor is just littered with SIM cards. We’re in Myanmar. Only weeks after rebel fighters took control of a cyberscam center near the border with Thailand. For years, Chinese criminals have used ordinary office spaces like this in the middle of the jungle to target Americans in elaborate online fraud. OK, here we are, the nerve center of this multibillion-dollar industry that is scamming people all across the world. More than 3,000 people from dozens of countries were once employed here, joining an industry that has proliferated during Myanmar’s civil war. There’s just row after row of monitors. Looks just like a normal office park. This is all evidence of scamming. Many of the workers fled, leaving behind documents and records detailing the scams. This looks like a receipt. There were also piles of electronic equipment, the main tools of their trade. Here are AT&T SIM cards. So you can just pretend that you’re calling from the United States. The scammers would act like potential love interests and …