The gleaming city is one of the most infamous of the hubs thriving in Myanmar’s border regions, which have devolved into hives of black market activity since a civil war consumed the country in 2021.
The hubs gained international notoriety for housing internet fraud factories where workers – some of them trafficked – rob foreigners with romance and business cons worth billions of dollars annually.
In pleas written from a Bangkok prison and seen by AFP, She denied all allegations of criminality and insisted his company was simply an “urban developer”.
His attorney Daniel Arshack has told AFP the allegations against She were “fabricated” and, once in China, “it is expected that he will be deprived of due process, tortured, and ultimately disappeared”.
She’s Thai lawyer Sunya Eadjongdee declined to comment on Wednesday, saying the extradition was a confidential matter.
Scam victims in Southeast and East Asia alone were conned out of up to US$37 billion in 2023, according to a UN report, which said global losses were likely “much larger”.
Beijing has led an international pressure campaign to crack down on the scam hubs, irked at its citizens being lured to work in the industry and targeting other Chinese with their cons.
China sentenced five people to death this month for their involvement in a violent criminal gang with fraud operations in Myanmar’s Kokang region.
Source: CNA
