The case of Chinese actor Wang Xing, kidnapped in Thailand and transferred to a center in Myanmar, has once again focused attention on the trafficking of Chinese citizens in Southeast Asia. According to the team of experts who met with Thai government officials, there are 12 Hong Kongers kidnapped, but no time frame has been set.
Hong Kong (/Agencies) – The Hong Kong government sent a team of experts to Thailand to try to free 12 citizens held in various online scam centers in Southeast Asia. The task force, which arrived in Bangkok yesterday, stated that it had received a positive reception from the Thai authorities. “Today we received an enthusiastic response from the Thai government,” said Michael Cheuk Hau-yip, who heads the delegation. “Under the leadership of their prime minister, they have done important work,” Cheuk continued.
The team of experts, composed of officials from the Security Bureau and the Immigration Department and police officers, however, did not fail to highlight the difficulties of a rescue operation, since the majority of Hong Kong trafficking victims They are located in centers located on the border between Thailand and Myanmar and Myanmar and Laos, areas that are “chaotic and difficult to control,” mainly due to the civil war in which Myanmar has been mired for three years. Timelines have not yet been set for the release of the 12 Hong Kongers who were reportedly kidnapped last spring. Their cases are part of the 28 requests for help that Michael Cheuk Hau-yip’s Public Security Department has received in recent months.
The task force also met yesterday with representatives of the Chinese Embassy in Thailand. Beijing has long been working to reduce human trafficking involving Chinese citizens. In 2023 China launched a campaign against online scam centers in Myanmar: In two years, more than 53,000 Chinese citizens were arrested suspected of being involved in various types of fraud.
Hong Kong authorities decided to intervene after news of the kidnapping of Chinese actor Wang Xing in Thailand. Attracted by a casting announcement that later turned out to be false, he was taken to a slavery center in Myawaddy, a Burmese city known for being the epicenter of the phenomenon of human trafficking. Some research have revealed that these centers are controlled by the Karen National Army, one of the ethnic militias that apparently supports Myanmar’s military junta in the border areas with Thailand, but these operations are in turn linked to Chinese criminal organizations, as various investigations have already shown.
Wang Xing’s parents and girlfriend alerted the authorities. The news immediately had great resonance on social networks and allowed the case to be quickly resolved. Wang was located by Thai immigration authorities and repatriated in a very short time because he had not yet been transferred to other centers. The episode sparked a flood of missing person reports on Chinese social media, and some relatives of other victims they counted that they had received phone calls asking for a ransom of $500,000.
Hong Kong singer Eason Chan Yik-shun recently canceled his concert dates in Bangkok stating that Thailand is no longer a safe country for Chinese citizens. Ma Cheuk, who has led the anti-trafficking team since its establishment in 2022, said there have been no cases of kidnappings on the streets so far. On the contrary, victims of online scam centers are often lured with fake job advertisements, and as they are moved from one place to another they lose track of them.
According to the Organized Crime Indexas of 2021 Myanmar ranks first in the world in terms of the spread of transnational crime. In 2022, 46 Hong Kongers submitted a request for help to the government after being victims of trafficking in Southeast Asia. Since then there has been an increase in kidnappings of people residing in Hong Kong. The script is always the same: they contact victims on social or messaging platforms, such as Telegram. When they reach their destination, their passports are taken away so they cannot escape and they are kept in conditions of slavery, forcing them to raise money on the Internet through various types of scams.
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