The Underworld Podcast - Burmese Warlords, Gangsters & A Scam Utopia

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Buried on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, Shwe Kokko is a shimmering city of skyscrapers, casinos and fresh-laid highways. But peek a little closer and you’ll see why it has become one of the world’s criminal capitals — from razor-wire fences to keep in thousands of enslaved scammers, to armed rebel guards and a theme park where Chinese high-rollers can shoot military-grade weapons.Shwe Kokko is a gangster’s paradise. But not any gangster: the brainchild of a Burmese warlord and his Triad kinpin partner, it is an emblem of Golden Triangle lawlessness — where drugs, scams and slaves are bartered like chickens, and where billions of dollars disappear into a gigantic dark market. And this year, it has even helped start an international conflict. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's December 24, 2024 in Shanghai, China. An actor Wang Xing is scrolling on his phone. Wang, stage name Jing Jing, is an up-and-comer, 22 years old with credits in some pretty big TV shows. But he still needs work. and when a friend shows him a group on the social media app we chat called Sunan Professional Actors group, Wang joins and he hopes for the best. Shortly after, Wang gets a DM. Somebody calling themselves Yan, an acting coordinator for GmM Grammy, the biggest entertainment group in Thailand. Record an audition tape, Jan tells him, I think I've got a job for you.

A couple days later, Wang does just that, with his girlfriend Jia Jar on Camry. chute. Yan doesn't even wait a data message back. You've got the job. But here's the thing. It's in Thailand and we don't have all the details yet. Wang backs out. It schemes a little sketchy. Besides, who is Yan anyway? But Yang keeps pushing, keeps telling Wang how great he is. How if he takes the job, there'll be way more to come. In media, flattery and the promise of an income will get you everywhere. Okay, Wayne says, I'll come to Thailand. On Jan 2nd, 2025 around 9pm, Wang departs Shanghai-Pudong Airport for Bangkok and arrives in the Thai capital around 2 a.m. local time. At 3.40 a.m., he climbs into a grey Toyota Altis provided by GmM Grammy, and he heads out on a mega journey across the night, almost 300 miles north.

Six hours later, they arrive in Mysot, a small city, separated from the Burmese city of Miyawadi by the Moai River. Miawadi, in the war-torn state of Cayenne, is a hot spot for organised crime, whether drug, gem or gun running, or the human trafficking that fuels giant city-like scam compounds, where armies of slaves work on romance scams or illegal gambling operations worth tens of billions of dollars. Among them, one stands out, a great hub of skyscrapers run by a legendary warlord and financed by an elusive Chinese mobster with ties to politicians all over Asia. Its name is Shwey Coco, the golden rain tree, and it's just a short drive from Miawa. Wang has been messaging Jarja this whole time, but around 11 a.m., he loses signal.

He's told to switch vehicles at a Mysot supermarket, and he hops into a Toyota high-lucked pickup driven by a Thai man who calls himself ravied. they cross a bridge. Wang doesn't even know he's in Myanmar. He just thinks he's getting to his Thai shooting location. In fact, he's been kidnapped. And he's on the road from Mia Wadi to a place called Apollo Park, one of the scam centres associated with Shui Coco. Jarja panics.

When she still hasn't heard from Wang the next day, on January 3rd, she reports his disappearance to Shanghai cops, then to the Chinese embassy in Bangkok. But nobody seems to know what's happened, nor do they really care. Two days later, she posts to social media. Please help, she writes, I need to know where Wang is. The post goes viral. Bigwig actors, directors and producers, they get on board.

Within hours, it seems like the whole of China needs to know where Wang Xing is being held. But his ordeal is only just beginning. Welcome to the Underworld podcast. Hello and welcome to the weekly audio visual podcast experience. We're too grizzled and bitter, but remarkably good-looking reporters introduce these to the seamy world global organized crime. I am Sean Williams in Wellington, New Zealand. Dean Wop happy having just done five days of solo parenting.

And I'm joined as ever by writer, reporter, filmmaker, and as well, anal cream endorseor Danny Gold in New York City. You know, that ad hasn't been confirmed yet, so I'm going to ask you to slow down. But potential endorsers, I'd say. say is what we are potential but also what does demob mean you keep saying that i have no idea what that word means it's it's it's just it means when you've just come off a military tour i think the phrase demob happy is when you're just like you're on shore leave basically and you're going nuts okay all right great reference yeah uh thanks always for listening guys it has been a great year for us so far i'm

saying that with a straight face for a while and especially appreciate those who sign up to the patreon there's a ton going up there including the views on Cuba, Brazil, Japan, can frequent stash house roundup shows and source material and notes for all these whopping great scripts that we put together. You have to sign up. You can actually do that right on Spotify at the top of our page right there or on iTunes or at Patreon. Or at patreon.com slash an award podcast. It will come right to your Spotify feed or your iTunes feed, making it simple. On the Patreon, you also get ad-free episodes and the episodes early. I think, yeah, on the Spotify too, you get that. Maybe not on iTunes. Why not do that?

Yeah. That sounds great, Danny. Why wouldn't be? Why wouldn't someone do that? And keep your show ideas rolling in and too, guys. The Underworld Podcast at gmail.com and merch. It's good stuff. What's up?

Your end, man. You've been investigating that shoots out around the corner from your apartment? I actually haven't. You know, I talked about it on the Stash House. But if you guys don't know, there was a triple murder around the apartment, around that corner from my apartment. I think it was the biggest, like, mass shooting in New York has had in a while, besides that one downtown with like the psycho CTE guy.

But I think in terms of like a, like I don't think there's been a triple shooting in a very long time. It was a shootout. Gang situation, two shooters killed, one innocence in like a crowded club, I think a 10 or 12 people wounded,

wild stuff. But I'm just not like the days of me keeping up the local gangs around me or like known people, all the different acronyms, who did what, who's, who's whatever.

I think they're kind of past, man. Like, I've, you know, I got other problems. I got the other things to worry about. So have not been keeping up with it, figure that out relatively quickly, and then just, you know, whatever it is. I think two shooters involved are still on the run, which is crazy. But there you go. Wow.

Yeah. This guy only deals in major organized criminal groups these days. Doesn't want to mess with the streets. Now, to Myanmar and Shwey Coco, a place that the BBC described earlier this year, as quote, a bizarre city built on scams. And this article goes on, quote, the tall shiny buildings which rise out of the cornfields on the Myanmar side of the Moe River

are a site so jarring you find yourself blinking to be sure you haven't imagined it. Yeah, it's interesting. You talked about Maysat in the cold open. When I spent time in Southeast States of traveling and then later reporting, you know, both in Thailand and Burma, it was shady for sure,

but it was also this kind of like a transit point for like all the aid workers working with Burmese refugees are going into Burma. I think also the Burma Free Rangers might have operated out of there. I could be wrong. But it was a fascinating city in and of itself, like the quintessential wild border city. And who doesn't love a great border city, especially from a war zone to a, you know, we've talked about border cities a lot on the show we used to. But what a place.

Oh, it's just getting me out there, man. Anyway, unlike some of the experiences I've had on the road in that part of the world, this is not a drug-induced hallucination by the report. but one of the strangest places on the planet, a kind of gold standard for a global scam industry that has pretty much taken over Southeast Asia. And as we'll find further down the show, it's actually leading to full-blown military conflicts. And we'll get into plenty of other stuff today,

including the warlord who runs Shui Coco, the Chinese gangster who owns it, how organized crime is fueling Myanmar's grinding civil war. And of course, what happened to poor old Wang Ching after he got ferried across the border, border at my sock. Also, I think a lot of you have tuned into our shows on Myanmar or Burma, from the historical ones on Kuntzar, Olive Yang to the shows about the billion-dollar meth lab, Rohingya Human Trafficking, and Alice Gouro, the Philippine mayor turned scammer, turned Chinese spy.

You're not going to need telling twice how utterly lawless and breathtaking some of the numbers are in Burmese organized crime. But here's a few to tee up today's show. Like, for example, how cyber scamming on Southeast Asia generates almost $44 billion per year. Or how Americans alone, and bear in mind these scams don't primarily target Americans, lose almost $6 billion to so-called pig-butchering scams a year. Pig butchering being the term for fattening the pig, i.e. keeping a mark invested in a scam all the way up until it's too late, and they've handed over their life savings.

Illegal betting in Southeast Asia, that makes 425,000. billion dollars per annum. By comparison, Mexican cartels are thought to be making anywhere between six and 40 million bucks. So this stuff is wildly, like insanely big. In Cambodia alone, and we're going to get to Cambodia later on, the UNODC claims that Chinese criminal syndicates control up to 350,000 people and generate up to $75 billion annual revenue. That is around a third to a half of the country's entire GDP, which is why there's a lot of weird political shenanigans going on there right now. We've actually got a couple of interviews I've done for this episode. So you're going to hear from Nathan Southern and Lindsay Kennedy, reporters based out in Penn-on-Pen, and friends of the show,

of course, who've done some really great work on the topic. And I also spoke with Richard Hawsey at the International Crisis Group. I've actually spent a bit of time in Myanmar with Rich, and I think he's just about the best source on what's going on there. We'll put the full interview for that on Patreon. Wow, there's so much going on in what you just said. Like, I'm, even I'm intrigued and eyes wide open right now, and I've spent time in these places. Yeah, it's, it's mad, man. Like, Rich has been to Shwey Coco, so he's a great source on this.

And he's actually being to its even madder neighbor KK Park. He sent me a couple of picks. We can stick up on the Patreon as well. And here is how he described it to me. Yeah, so Shwey Coco is really important because of its scale. It's been built over the last decade. aid as a purpose-built criminal hub based around casinos, money laundering, and then since around the time of COVID scam centres as well. And that's what's really exploded in terms of revenue. And if you think

about what you need to run criminal enterprises like that, you need kind of immunity from law enforcement scrutiny. And Shwekoko has that because it's controlled by an armed group, kind of in a vague alignment with the Myanmar military, but it's no proxy of the Myanmar military. So it can pretty much do what it wants in its area. It's adjacent to the Thai border. So you have access to all the infrastructure of Thailand, which does not exist in Myanmar, things like electricity, fast internet, those kind of things that you need. But also, the logistics of getting people in. Because if you're running casinos, you just need, you know, some cameras above the table so you can stream it on the internet and you need a few workers

who can be, you know, hired and trained locally. But for scamming, you need a different profile of person. You need, you know, a tech savvy English speaking preferably or Chinese speaking, if you're if you're going after Chinese punters. And you need someone who can present as a kind of professional, someone who's got insider tips on bit trading, someone whose uncle is deeply embedded in the financial systems of the region. You can't do with this with local workers. And so those kind of professionals have to be brought in from all around the world, actually. And that's where also being adjacent to the Thai border is very useful. Because, you know, you can fly into Bangkok, you can drive on good roads to the border.

and because of the casinos and the pre-existing criminality, the path was already opened, greased, if you like, for people to cross that border illegally. And so if you've already got a system for, you know, local gamblers, some high rollers, some others to cross up well across that border without having any paperwork checks, suddenly you can bring in thousands, tens of thousands, actually, in Shweko. foreign nationals to work in these scam centers. Some of them tricked, some of them thinking they were just going to go into some acting job or some call center job, data entry job in Bangkok, others knowing exactly what they were doing and deciding that, you know, it was worth the risk for the money. I know we've gone over some of these operations before, but like Rich says, this stuff just really is insane. You've got entire cities cropping up out of literally nothing, just scrubland, patches of dirt in the Mekong or Irrawaddy river basins,

skyscrapers, golden casinos, and mile upon mile of barred razor wire compounds where hundreds of thousands of slaves are sitting on Instagram telling your granddad they're in love with him and they just need a little bit of crypto for a kidney operation. And all of this is going on in a country that is going through a bitter civil war, more belligerents than a game of Fortnite and no end in sight. A small plug to check out my latest feature for the Wire China on how China is wound up in this war. I'm actually trying to get out there in December or January 2, so watch this space. Yeah, I think I've suggested this before, but our new income stream for the podcast,

and it shouldn't be like social media clips or live shows, curated vacations, taking listeners to places like this that they shouldn't go, you know, lawless Burmese cities full of illegal casinos and scam centers. I think this is actually our future. Yeah, you're going to have to sign. some pretty hefty documentation. We'll get some documentation, but if you're listening, and you have a lot of money, we'll take you.

We don't care. We'll do it. Notice how he just like, you know, poo-pooed the live show as well as making that comment. But we'll talk about that another time. Anyway, Kokang is another region of Myanmar that has been riddled with these places over the last few years. That is a mountainous region in northeastern Shan state on the border with China's Yunnan province. And that has been a hub for global organized crime going all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century. century, a major producer of heroin, home to Olive Yang, Lo Singh Han and other stars of previous shows. Check out our Kokang Cowboys, Two Part of for more than on that.

But if the lesson for Latin American narcos is don't be getting the feds involved, in Myanmar, it's don't piss off the Chinese, especially if you're a scamming kingpin hanging out right there on the Chinese border. Now, the compounds across Kokang and Shan State, they're primarily focused at squeezing cash out of Chinese. marks. And in late 2023, China actually carous together three ethnic rebel groups into something called the Three Brotherhood Alliance, kicking off Operation 1027, named after its start date to wipe out scam laws in the region. Operation 1027 is still going today. It's since drawn a fourth rebel group into the alliance, and it's been so successful that not only of the majority of scam compounds shut down, but the China-backed rebels have used it to break the lines of Myanmar's ruling

Hunter, the Tapmador. And now China is demanding they pull back for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with mining and money. But you can read my article for that, because what Operation 1027 means down in Cayenne State is that all eyes have been off Shui Coco and its own constellation of warlords and gangsters. And the results of that have been pretty spectacular. that. Hold on. Let me just, I want to backtrack this because there's a lot going on right here. So the Chinese government has sponsored three different rebel groups to fight these scam compounds. With the scam compounds are run by guys who have their own rebel armies. That's a profitable they are. Yep. And this rebel alliance fight is, it has done so well that they've now taken the

fight to the government of Myanmar, even though both of these groups, the government of Myanmar, and the rebel alliance are both sponsored by the Chinese. Exactly. And the Chinese have basically told them to pull out of towns and cities they've taken from the Tapador because they've taken over areas where they produce tons of minerals that China needs. So the Chinese have basically gone, oh, shit, the whole reason for this war for us is to keep hold of all this stuff. And now the rebels are in control and we don't like that. So they've kind of like, yeah, I don't know.

The way that China is involved in this war is insane. And we'll get to more of it later on. Yeah, this is probably the craziest story I've heard in a while. And it's really just probably significantly undercovered. It's terribly undercover. Yeah, except for me, except for me. So pay me lots of money to do that. First off, though, let's just park that for a second and go back all the way to 1994.

And that is the year that a young rebel commander named Saw Chit Thu, gathered a bunch of his men and he forms the splinter group from the Karen National Union or KNU and calls it a democratic Karen Buddhist army, the DKBA. Can you just explain to the audience who the

Korean are real quick? Yeah, the Koran are kind of the indigenous people of Kayin, which is another confusing part of this story. But they're basically an ethno-linguistic group. I think they only make up like 5% of Myanmar, but

that basically is enough. Everything in Myanmar is based on ethno-inguistic groups and all states are, which is kind of part of the problem of the country as a whole. And the DKBA, this group that saw Chit Thu gathers, they're just a few thousand men, right? They're an offshoot of an offshoot of an offshoot in this insane, just constantly splitting up world of Burmese rebels. And if you want to laugh or that massive headache, go to the list of ethnic armed organizations in Myanmar Wikipedia page and just like scroll down for about 15 minutes. And then you'll appreciate how bloody difficult it is to write about the country, which out without needing like a full glossary after every paragraph.

And yeah, the state is cayenne. The people are the Karen. That is all totally cool and it makes a ton of sense, trust me. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny when people, I guess funny might be the wrong term. when people refer to the Civil War in Myanmar, you know, because it's kind of like the government there has been embroiled in numerous civil wars for decades and decades since it basically came into power. I came like, what, half a dozen, various rebel militias they've been fighting against for decades and decades. Yeah, it just keeps splitting into way more. I think there's like maybe 17 active groups at the moment.

It's mad. Anyway. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss.

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I'm gonna hug you. I'm coming in for a hug. The jurors sat in a dark room, hands resting on a Ouija board. They weren't guessing. They were asking the victim, who had killed them. them. Sounds unbelievable, right? But it happened. And that's just one of thousands of stories waiting for you on Morning Cup of Murder. Hi, I'm Karina B. B. Minas Durfer. And every single day on Morning Cup of Murder, I bring you a real, chilling true crime story connected to that exact day in history.

From Killer Cannibal Brothers to the Boy Scout who was obsessed with the occult and the strange story of the bloody hammer in the frozen cabin. These aren't the cases you've heard a hundred times. They're the ones that make you stop and think, how have I never heard this before? With over 2,500 episodes and a brand new story each and every single day, morning cup of murder becomes part of your routine fast. If you like your coffee hot but your bones chilled, then sit back and start your day with a morning cup of murder. Go listen to Morning Cup of Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay safe. All of that is to say that the K&U is fighting for an independent Kyan state. But Saw Chit Tzu, he doesn't fit the mould of that, right?

He is wild and he's venal and he's preoccupied with cash. The K&U claims it boots him out in 1994, whether he was pushed or he jumped. He forms his new group and they fortify a small area on the Thai border along the Mawe River at Mewadi, building encampments, villas and a parade ground. Chit Tzu, he assumes control of something called a 999 Special Battalion, which even by Burmese standards is outlandishly bloodthirsty. The 999 often sweep across the river to massacre Thai civilians, and it burns down camps of refugees from Myanmar's never-ending war.

The Tatmador joins a pact with Chitou. No longer will he fight for an independent Kain, but for the regime, against his former comrades, the K&U. And just to reiterate, Tatmadale was essentially like the central government of Myanmar, right? It's like calling the Russian government the Kremlin. Pretty much, yeah. It's like a really weird cult-like Buddhist supremacist organization. And yeah, it's they are also called the SAC.

So if you see that in the news, that is basically just the same word as the Tamadour. Anyway, this is a pretty common story across Myanmar, right? Which is another reason that it is completely screwed. This kind of like series of acts and deals that the Tatmador makes just as cling on to power. So now in control of a major boulder crossing, Saw Chitou soon amasses great wealth, either by taxing or leading himself, operations smuggling Jade, gems, rare earth materials,

wildlife, timber, even people. Now in the mid-1990s, Burmese heroin takes a nosedive right as meth production takes over. I think there's like an exact crossover on a graph in 1996. And Chit-thu makes a huge packet on a new night. narcotic of choice. He ferries millions of so-called Yaba or crazy pills from jungle labs in neighbouring Burmese states across Thailand and into the rest of Asia. He constructs a giant theme park and resort just outside the Cayenne Capital Paran and he names it after himself. In 2010,

Chit Thu's DKBA formerly allies with the Tatmador and becomes one of several border guard forces or BGFs across Myanmar. These are official regime proxies. The Tapador basically tells them, be our friends and we'll let you do whatever you want on your own turf. Here's the Asia Times, quote. For over two decades, Chitou has been a case study in prolonged impunity and an environment where in security merges seamlessly with illicit enterprise, collective elite rent-seeking, and the gray area of multiple antagonists with shifting loyalties in a long-running civil war. In 2015, Nobel Prize winner, Unsan Suu Kyi, wins a national election and returns Myanmar to democracy.

I'm doing gigantic air quotes, of course, here. Because the Tapador has spent so many years making these Faustian packs, just like the ones it's done with Sochitzu, that Myanmar isn't really a country by this point, right? It's a patchwork of fiefdoms run by warlords, gangsters and religious cellots. So Unsang Suu Kyi stands pretty much no chance of keeping pace. power or united the nation. And in 2021, the Tatmador just seizes control of the country right back in a coup. Po-democracy forces declare a civil war and all these dense regional disputes they just fire right back up again. Now, because of this dense weave of deals the Tatmador has done with kingpins like Chit Thu, this isn't just a war between the regime and pro-democracy

forces, which makes it really, really hard for the media to get their teeth into. There are wars within wars, old scores being settled, hatreds revived, there are gangs fighting gangs, rebels versus rebels, Rohingya Muslims being targeted yet again, and China is backing whoever it thinks will protect its massive investments. We're talking tens and tens of billions of dollars, from oil rigs and ports to roads, dams and most importantly, mines. And this cannot be overstated, right? Myanmar provides almost two-thirds of the entire world's heavy rare earths. This is the stuff making your iPhones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, jet fighters, TVs. Wait, that can't be true. More than all of Africa and Congo, all that, really?

Yep, it's insane. I think it's about 61% of China's imports of rare earths, which is almost like China makes nearly all of them. So it's staggering the amount of mineral wealth, which is just across Chinese border. That's insane. I had no idea. Dude, that's not. Yeah. Yeah. And like the mines, they're only in one part, right?

So in the, this is kind of going off track, but there's like a group called the KIA. It's not going to that. But they're now in control because of the Free Brother Alliance of like half the world's rare earth minerals. So they've just like, China has backed them to smash the scam compound. and they in turn have just suddenly commanded one of the world's greatest deposits of money. This is not to say, like, it's insane. Do you think they'd be interested in maybe podcast ads? I'll ask them.

I'll ask them. I found some good contacts. Yeah, please. Reach out. Maybe they have some things they want people to know or invest in. I don't know. I'll give you some investment tips, actually, after this show, because there are some pretty good ones related to me.

Anyway, I'm not saying there aren't people fighting for rights and freedom in Myanmar. There are, of course, millions of people doing that. Many of them young students, mothers, fathers, incredibly impressive folks switching overnight from college or jobs to front lines. But it's useful to be reminded that the two main things overwhelmingly driving conflict in Myanmar are resources and cash. It always has been, always will be. Now, So Chitsu had been doing pretty well during the democracy years between 2016 and 2021. He'd been able to work his way into the legitimate economy.

A Toyota dealership is running, gets subcontracted to a Chinese mega road building project with the Asian Development Bank. I mean, you want to make real money, help build freeways in developing countries. And running car dealerships, even in like the Midwest, dude, that's where the cash is at, man. Do you know a funny little fact that the president of Palau runs a Toyota dealership in Baltimore. Didn't. Didn't know that. Yeah, I just found that out recently.

It's pretty weird. Anyway, you want to make even more money? You carve out your own mini-kingdom. You build freeways for China. You smuggle drugs, weapons, and resources, you have an army. And in the case of Sautchit Thu, pal up with a mad, fugitive, Chinese Cambodian gangster, oh, who also claims that he's a spy. So the more eagerly of you might remember today's next protagonist from a show we did

back at the start of the year. about Alice Gouel, the Philippine mayor and scam center operator who's probably also a Chinese Communist Party spy. It's a great story, massive scandals, slave compounds, drugs, go listen if you haven't already. Well, the guy who outed her as a spook, his name is terrible Chinese pronunciation incoming. Shih-Zang, oh my God, that guy, I've been, my head's gone since that guy sent me an email about messing up Chinese pronunciations. Shue Zhizang. Shesijang.

Sometimes goes by a Cambodian name, I'm not even going to try bothering to say. And not only is he knee-deep into Philippine pig-butchering scams, but he's also the gangster in chief at Shui Koko, building an empire from nothing alongside Saw Chip-Thu and his battalion of rebel thugs. Now, Shur runs a company called Yatai International Holding, registered in Hong Kong,

headquartered in Bangkok, with big projects in Cambodia, the Philippines, and, yes, Myanmar. Despite this guy being at the heart of one of the biggest criminal marketplace on earth, very little is known or written about him. In fact, a 2017 Chinese magazine profile of him, the writer calls shirt a quote, legend without a story. And then it goes into writing a story about him. He's born in 1980 to a farming family in central China.

He works dozens of odd jobs before, he claims, moving to Manila and getting a break in, quote, game development, although it doesn't go into any detail there. He says it was difficult to get by as a Chinese businessman abroad when he first moved away, but he adds that these days, quote, the status of overseas Chinese has clearly improved. People have started to respect you and give you a high look, because behind you is a powerful China. To what extent that powerful China is actually behind Shirt is part of his mystery. but we'll get to that. Shirt runs an upmarket spa by Manila's International Airport and a huge complex on a beach in Cambodia. I think, like, again, this is quote gaming,

but I think I read something crazy like it takes up 20% of Cambodia's coastline. Nobody knows exactly how he bagged a Cambodian passport, but in a country where you can pay the government 250 grand for one, it's probably that. But it is in Kayin's state where shirt starts, starts his most controversial project, securing permission from the Burmese government in 2018 for a 25-acre $15 billion city in Sochit-Thu's stronghold of Shui Coco, 25 acres who soon becomes 50, and the final size of the plans are thought to be 3,000 acres,

about four times a size of Central Park or five times the size of the city of London. I actually fact-chat you on this. It's like the city of London, like that tiny old area, right? not like the whole thing of London. You got to be, we're going to yell that in the comments. You've got to be specific about that. It's the city of London. Yeah, but I don't know what that means.

It's the square mile. No one not from England knows what that means. Oh, come on, man. Well, I've never heard of Central Parks. New Yeti City, as it will be known, will include an airport, luxury housing, a 1,200-room hotel, casino, supermarkets,

department stores, an industrial zone, entertainment complex, and weirdly a police station, or I guess that makes perfect sense, really. And Shus people quickly set about destroying local villages' homes to make it. Some folks head out in the morning to work and return to find their homes bulldozed. Here is Rich again.

So, you know, I was last in Shweiko Co. I don't know, about seven years ago. And I just drove there from Yangon. The roads were pretty bad. There was a sort of not very significant checkpoint, which kind of just asked me a couple of questions. And on I went. And suddenly I was in this kind of Chinese city. You know, it had, it looked like I was in China. It had been built by Chinese construction companies according to the templates for, you know, large villages, large sort of urbanized villages in China. So you had all of the road markings, all of the rubbish bins with little panders on top, you know, everything, a little fake lake in front of the six-story Chinese hotel where the sign was only in Chinese, where the star was only in Chinese, where the star,

only spoke Chinese, not Burmese. You know, if you'd blinked, you could have believed that you were in China. But the most of the area at that point was still a construction site. And they had these investment pamphlets for kind of, you know, Chinese investors, which was presenting this as a high-tech city, a city that was going to have its own airport. This was going to be the first cryptocurrency-driven city in the world. There was all this puff and inflation. But what it was was very obvious.

It was a route for Chinese capital that at that point, because of Chinese controls on moving money outside the country, there was this kind of desperation to find ways to get your money out of the country. You know, if you had a kid that you were going to put through university in Singapore or in the US or something, you needed money outside the country. If you were worried about your assets being frozen, you wanted money outside the country. And so these kinds of zones offered not just a potentially lucrative investment. You could pay your investment onshore in China and it would be invested offshore and your profits would be paid offshore.

So it was also an invitation for moving capital outside the country. So, you know, not everyone who invested in this believed the puff, but I think some of them did. But what it actually was going on was just loads and loads of six-story grey concrete buildings were being put up with high fences, razor wire on the inside, keeping people from getting out, not keeping people from getting in. And then these were just being stuffed with call center workers for scamming. So you've got this giant city popping out of nowhere. Cherji Zhang is at the helm, pouring in cash that he's made from his other criminal enterprises across Asia, and all of it is overseen by a sore Chitou and the DKBA. By this point Chitou,

leads five local corporations working not only with gangsters like sure but in mining, auto-dealing, tourism. I mean, tourism in Myanmar, okay. Financial investment and energy. Wait, to be fair, if this was like the mid-2010s, tourism Myanmar probably looked like there was potential for it to bus wide open. I mean, you know, precarious investment, but still. I guess during the democracy years, there was a lot of like column inches, especially in the US, right? Because Aung San Suu Kyi was best mates with Obama. Yeah, there was a.

I did a big, I did a lot of work on it. There was a lot of scandals because they were, and the UN especially was downplaying what was happening to the Rohingya, despite all the warnings that groups like fortified rights were issuing and all the things that they were saying were happening. The UN completely ignored it. So to the West because they wanted to open the country up. They thought it would be beneficial.

Didn't work out, but, you know. No. But shout out to Yangon, one of the most fun cities I've been in the world. It's such a cool place. I have no idea what it's like at the moment, but it is really great. The whole time, Sochitsu is turning the region into his own family kingdom, right? He's delegating more and more to his three children. They live in Shwey Villa, which is a sprawling hacienda at the heart of Shwey Coco,

surrounded by luxury vehicles, security guards, artwork jewelry, Billy and Esther. Rich Horses, he went to Shueh Coco a few years back, and this is what he saw. When I drove to Shueh Coco a few years ago, I drove along the road from Pan. And I'd heard about this place. And so I tried to find it, and it's not actually that difficult to find. It kind of glows on the landscape, if you like. It's short drive from Pan in the direction of the Thai border.

And it's the most bizarre, incongruous theme part you can imagine. In the middle of the paddy fields, you've got this area carved out, made by Chitnu, the guy who runs this border guard force, the Karen National Army, you know, the scam centers, Raycoco, all that stuff. And he's thought, I don't know what he's thought, actually. I don't know if this is a vanity project or he thought, I'll give a little bit back to the people. But, you know, you've got this elevated kind of roller coastery kind of ride with pink rabbit cars that you can sit in, you know, and take selfies. And that takes you through the jungle.

And then you've got like gaming areas. And you've got, oh, some windmills. He obviously looked at this and he thought, we need some. some, it's like, if people are going to stay here, if one day of riding in a pink rabbit-shaped roller coaster car through the canopy isn't enough and you want to stay overnight, you know, people are going to want some pretty cool accommodation. And so he's built this kind of row of brightly colored windmills along the river. And they're actually hotels. You can stay in the time of upstairs, downstairs, duplex rooms. Not the finest quality, I would say,

but certainly, you know, adds to the kind of garishness of the whole place. And then right in the middle, you've got this, you can shoot any gun you want place. There's just this life-size-style Rambo figure outside, this kind of concrete box. And then, yeah, you want to shoot an AK-47? Go ahead. You want to shoot a, you know, M-16, go ahead. You want to shoot a 50-calibur machine gun. Yeah, a bit more expensive, but go for it. there's no kind of security. This is not a shooting range where, you know, you've got to sign a

three-page waiver and then, you know, not touch the weapon until they're instructed to do so. It's like, oh, there it is on the table. Go for it. Shoot at the wall. So it's, yeah, and this is in the middle of a war zone where all of these weapons are being used on a daily basis. And so, you know, something for everyone. You know, your kids can ride in the rabbit. You know, dad can shoot, get some frustration out by shooting a 50-Cal. You know, mom can kind of take selfies in front of the windmills. So something for everyone, yeah. Exema is unpredictable.

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See full terms at mintmobile.com. A shooting range and a war-themed amusement park beside a giant slave scam compound in the middle of an active war zone. It's all pretty on the nose. There's no subtly here. Shurji Zhang's Yatai City brings in waves of overseas workers, most of whom have their passable seized on arrival and threatened into scamming, sex work or other labour tasks. Here's one victim speaking to the Irawaddy website recently. After you enter Shweiko, you have to do a job interview with Yatai first. Only after you're approved by Yatai can you proceed to apply at online scam centers that

are recruiting. No company can recruit without approval from Yatai, which is to say, basically by this point, Shur has just taken over the sea. Deutsche Vela spoke to Svilla. several victims at Shwey Coco recently as well. One of them, a young man from West Africa, says that people there work 17-hour days, no rests, no day off,

and no ability to leave the compound, a bit like a podcaster. He describes having witnessed beatings, tortures, and even murders on the office floor. And he adds, quote, if we say we want to leave, they tell us they will sell us or kill us. To be fair, that's not like podcasting.

But now we get onto the 2021 coup. The Tatmador's season. his power from Ansan Suu Qi and Myanmar descends back into civil war. And this is actually pretty bad for Chit Thu's business. As the conflict spreads and more and more rebel groups pop up, there are more challenges to his monopoly of the Mysot borderlands. A bunch of the Hunters proxies are funded by scams, but the Tapador's most important backer, the one providing all the drones, the guns and the bombs that it's using to obliterate civilians, that is China. I think the Russians also provide a lot too.

They're one and two and I think they trade off per year because the Russians provide, I think jets, right, in like advanced weaponry. I think the Russians were the biggest providers up until the middle of last year and then China kind of like really stepped up backing them again. And I think it could be decisive. And when China gets angry about the scams and it launches Operation 1027 against Tatmador proxies, I know this is a little bit confusing. the Tatmador realizes it needs to show Beijing it's at least doing something to stop this massive

multi-billion dollar dark industry and it closes down a handful of compounds basically saying please Daddy I'm doing something don't be mad at me. Chit Fu begins plotting a way to keep his fortunes and control over Shui Coco while somehow at the same time avoiding the wrath of the Tatmador or the tons of rebels sweeping across the country. In 2022 things get a bit more complicated when Thai officials arrest Shershi Jiang and they promise to extradite him to China to face charges of running illegal gambling operations because, yeah, no shit. Yatai releases a statement claiming that it's only into quote legal real estate development. Shea actually then claims two things.

One, that he's not actually Chinese at all and therefore can't be extradited. And two, that he's actually working alongside the Chinese Communist Party. as an intelligence asset, which is pretty wild, but not without precedent. Another man involved in Shwey Coco is Wang Kwokoi, aka Broken Tooth, one of the most notorious triad gang leaders in Asia and a star of a show we did, I think, back in 2023. Now Broken Tooth has his fingers or teeth in criminal pies all over Asia, from Pen on Pen to Palau. There can't be many shows that we've mentioned Palau twice, Jesus.

and he regularly touts the fact that he works on behalf of the Chinese government. Here is Jason Tower, an expert in Myanmar, quote, Wang Kwak Koi also has a quote that he uses fairly regularly. He says he used to fight for the cartels, and now he fights for the Chinese Communist Party. So, you see, even besides the war in Myanmar, all of this has a deeply political angle. China has sunk tens of billions of dollars into Myanmar,

especially mining timber and gas, and its place since the outbreak of war has basically to be backing whichever groups, whether rebels or regime, which can promise to keep its stuff safe. There's an extraordinary phenomenon in the west of the country in Rakhine State, which is home to the long-suffering Rohingya, where refugees and civilians will actually take shelter

underneath and besides a massive Chinese oil and gas pipeline because it is the only thing they can guarantee no soldier will dare to take aim at. Kain State is also home to Chinese assets, so it's not crazy that Shuzhi Jiang or Saw Chit Thu would be working closely with the Chinese Communist Pipe to ensure their investments have kept safe, all the while using that cover to build their vast criminal empire.

In 2023, the UK sanctions Shurji Zhang and Saw Chit Thu for being, quote, responsible for, providing support for or obtaining benefits, fit from the trafficking of individuals to Shwey Coco, where they were forced to work as scammers targeting English-speaking individuals and were subject to torture, physical abuse, and further cruel inhuman and degrading treatment. Quick side note here is a bit rich from the UK, given that a lot of the holding companies are based in the Isle of Man, which is a tax haven off the west coast of England. It's pretty unlikely also that these sanctions have any more

than a symbolic impact. It's not as if either man is heading over to England for medical treatment or a Cornish pasty, for example. In March 2020, the Tatmador squeezes sore chip through to go on raids against the KNLA, another ethnic group in the region. Do it or will mess up your criminal empire, they tell him.

So he quits. He calls time on his association with the Tapador, and he rebrands his border guard falls as the KNA, the Karen National Army. army. He's going it completely alone, essentially. And he's telling anybody, including the regime, that they can come and have a go if they think they're already. So I'm assuming he's sensing the government is too weak at this point to do anything to them. Yeah, the tap of door is super, super weak. I think like before the Chinese stepped in after that Operation 1027, most people

were expecting them to actually lose the war and things might have changed since. So, and especially like in the hinterlands like Kayin. I mean, they've got no control at all. So, yeah, I think he was seeing his chance. Construction and scamming gather pace at Shwey Coco's various little sub-kingdoms and cities, and the tales of extreme violence continue to trickle out from survivors. Some people are attacked with cattle prods, others are tied up for hours in stress positions or crucified with ropes or made to crawl across gravel until their hands and knees bleed.

Shoshi Zhang, who is still in a Thai prison at this point, he continues singing about his involvement with the Chinese state, which I guess given China is the biggest player in all this, isn't the most advisable thing to do. But it seems to be the kidnapping of actor Wang Xing, the story at the top of today's show, which really turns the tide against Shui Coco and Saw Chip Thu. If you remember, we left his story on January 5th this year. He's across the Myanmar border and his girlfriend, friend Zhaja has managed to go viral on Chinese social media, getting fellow actors and movie makers

and shakers to share it. Another Chinese actor comes forward and said he'd almost fall into a similar trap, checking into a Bangkok hotel before reaching out to the director he's being told is attached to the products only to realize the director isn't involved at all and it's all a scam. Why go after actors like that? I mean, what's the point of grabbing people with some degree of fame whose disappearance can only bring unwanted attention? It just seems stupid. And a lot of I think from like the Chinese reports that I read, it's because the middlemen, like the kind of human trafficking gang that was the go-betweens between China and Myanmar, I think they had been somewhat involved in the movie business. There's like a cameraman or some kind of like a minor director or something. It's pretty weird.

There's a lot of conflicting information. So I didn't want to like stick it all in there because it's pretty sort of gray. Anyway, Jaja flies out to Bangkok on January 6th, and she heads straight to the Chinese embassy. The following day, after negotiations between Thai, Burmese and KNA officials, Wang is handed back over at a bridge between Mysot and Miyawadi, Gary Powers Thal. His head is shaven and he's wearing a white t-shirt and shorts, visibly thinner and scared. He tells cops he'd seen three buildings at his compound. The first was a gathering place for new abductees, where he's. he'd been alongside 10 other Chinese nationals.

Then they were taken to a second building, a training center where he says up to 50 Chinese had been imprisoned. For three days in that building, people had taught him how to carry out online fraud. He'd never fully made it, however, to the third building, but said it was huge and held people from all over the world. Everybody had shaved heads on war white, just like him. I mean, this is absolutely insane.

Like, I've covered on the ground, in Burman, Thailand, the way Southeast Asian slavery wings worked with the Rohingya, you know, which were like gang-pressing them into being slaves in like the secret history. You know, I think it was actually the third episode of the show we ever did. But, and don't get me wrong, it's unfathomily brutal like those. This is insane. Like, this is something out of like a science fiction movie. Yeah.

And I think the first time that we did a show on this, I remember the number being officially that like 150 to 200,000 people were in these camps. and now I think some figures are saying 350,000 so it's like it is not stopping it is a complete scandal Wang makes it back to Shanghai on January 11th this year but his story has rocked China

and given it as pretty much launched a military operation to cut down scam operations just a couple years previous this is not good news for Shui Coco a week later CCP cops bus what they claim is the human trafficking ring that lured Wang into Myanmar alongside dozens of others.

That's the group that we just mentioned was maybe involved in filmmaking to begin with. And then under pressure from China, Thailand cuts off the supply of electricity, internet and fuel to areas controlled by Cayenne ethnic rebel groups, including, of course, the KNA. Thousands of Chinese cancel vacations to Thailand and air carriers cancel hundreds of flights. Saw Chit-Thu may well know that his time's up by this point. He's ditched his powers in the Tapadour. He's pretty much at war with every other regional rebel group. Thailand is ghosting him.

His biggest client is in a prison cell. And China is coming for him. It is not great. So what does he do? Well, he actually does something pretty ingenious. I mean, you know, obviously immoral, terrible and possibly evil. But he suddenly releases thousands of people from block compounds all over Shwe-Koko, around 7,000 in total who were packed into detention facilities then fed little and are just a gigantic headache for Burmese and Thai authorities.

There are folks from 29 countries in this holding pens, including the Philippines, Kenya, even the Czech Republic. We've seen this happen in Europe with Russia and Belarus and Turkey, in turns releasing huge number of refugees and asylum seekers into Poland and other states, kind of using people as a, as a, as a, weapon and threats against the West. And given a lot of these people's countries don't even have embassies in Myanmar, Thailand, it's been a huge problem that has taken authorities' attentions off Saw Chit Thu. Here is rich again. You know, it's one thing to have Myanmar refugees crossing the border, and that's something that Thailand has had to deal with for decades. It's difficult, but you know, you kind of give them some land and they'll cut down some bamboo and build some shelters. And, you know, when it's safe to do so, you encourage them firmly to go back.

But you can't do that with foreign nationals, right? Third country nationals. You know, these are not people who will just live off the land. These are people who have no idea how to kind of, they don't speak Thai. They're used to sort of buying food from 7-Eleven. And so, yeah, it was a huge problem. There was no space in the prisons. There was no detention centers for them.

Immigration detention wouldn't have been able to handle this. And some of these countries don't have embassies in Thailand or even in Southeast Asia. And so the process of arranging how you identify, are they criminals, are they not, they've had their passports taken, they don't have any paperwork, how are we going to fly them back to Ethiopia? It took months. And that was just a small fraction of the number of people he had. So it was an implicit threat to Thailand. You want to play hardball? How would you like 100,000 or 30,000, say, foreign national suddenly dumped in MESOT?

See how you like that, you know? And so, you know, that's just one example of the kind of. of leverage that a powerful non-state actor has over a neighboring country, right? He plays by different rules than Thailand has to play by. This is really grim stuff, of course. It's also really fascinating how this criminal kingdom has spilled out into all kinds of high politics dragging in just about every major power on earth. I mean, I keep saying it, but it's insane, right?

So thousands of scam center slaves were just kind of wandering across the border from like all different countries. Yeah. And that's it. You're free now, guys. And then they're just held in these like detention centers because the people can't do anything with them. Then they're just like a massive political issue. Jesus.

Yeah. It's nuts, man. In May this year, the US sanctions saw shit through. Says Treasury Deputy SET Michael Falkinder, quote, cyber scams operations such as those run by the KNA, generate billions in revenue for criminal kingpins and their associates, while depriving victims of their hard-earned savings and sense of security. Treasury is committed to using all available tools to disrupt these networks and hold accountable those who seek to profit from these criminal schemes.

Like the UK's move, you might think this is a little more than tough words, but Rich actually sees it a little differently. I don't think it has much practical impact. I don't think Chitou was planning on visiting the US any time or keeping his assets in banks that will be subject to US jurisdiction. But, you know, Thailand is a place that is very integrated with the US economy and where the US does have quite a lot of leverage. And so, you know, it puts pressure on Thailand, I think, not to treat, not to allow him to make use of the Thai financial system and so on to further his aims. As Shrey Coco has allegedly switched up to Starlink to provide the internet connections for scam operations since May. but a lot of its buildings have allegedly fallen quiet and Saw Chit Thu has come out in the media to protest his innocence I am a Karen citizen who has struggled since childhood he says recently

I joined the military at young age after being denied the opportunity to receive an education it is not wrong to want the country to develop for the Koren people to live better lives but who would have thought who would have thought me that leasing land during the COVID pandemic would be the starting point for the call-centered gangs to increase their influence. And it goes on. Nowadays, everyone blames me alone. No one is taking responsibilities from the issue at hand. Whatever I do, every movement I make is criticized. Even when cooperating with Thai, Myanmar and Chinese authorities to suppress call-center gangs, society still views it as mere image-building. Uh, yes, mate, because it is. Shurji Zhang has also been going on a charm offensive from behind bars,

invited journalists on tours of his city at Shui Koko. Here's how one BBC reporter sees it on a recent tour. Shwey Koko has been left marooned in post-ku war-wracked Myanmar, unable to bring in the flow of investment and visit as he needs to keep going. Yatai is trying to fix the city's sinister image by allowing journalists to see it, holding out hope that more favourable reporting might even get Shurji Zhang out of jail. Yatai is vague about the tenants of all its building, as it is about many things.

Quote, rich people from many countries, they rent the villas. And what about the businesses? Many businesses, hotels, casinos. I mean, this article is kind of hilarious because sure won't let the reporters look around these giant razor wire compounds, which are obviously still for scamming. And when they do speak to someone who has lived there, she just goes into massive detail about how to con old men out of their cash.

At this point, the Burmese Civil War seems to have swung in the Tapador's favor, with China backing it against pro-democracy groups and the multitude of rebels. The KNA has resumed some activities alongside the Tapadour in recent months, so despite the Saw Chit Thu being surrounded by enemies on all sides, Shui Koko might just survive. Here is the New York Times, quote, as welcome as the US sanctions on Chit Thu may be, it is still too early to predict his demise. A survivor with multiple fingers in multiple dirty pies, He could reach eclectic accommodations and deals with multiple actors to ensure his exposure over scam centres is a temporary setback,

a kind of gangland market correction. And I'll end today's show with the latest and possibly the maddest development of all. The border war between Thailand and Cambodia, which has resulted in the deaths of several soldiers, is actually part caused by the scamming black market. These skirmishes kick off in July, ostensibly for a decades-old dispute over access to an ancient border Hindu temple. In addition to firefights, however, Thailand's reaction is included a threat to cut off electricity

and the internet to Cambodia, a veiled threat against Cambodian scam operations that, like I said at the top of the show, are worth up to a half of the country's entire GDP. Current estimates that there are over 100,000 people trapped in compounds across Cambod. Cambodia with the express permission of its politicians. But don't take it from me. Here's what Nathan Southern and Lindsay Kennedy, who work on this stuff day in, day out, had to say about how scams are directly causing international conflict. For the moments that matter, choose Kyrad Naturals. Infused with aloeuvreous and vitamin E. Kirad Natural's bandages protect your unexpected scrapes, cuts and burns, while also moisturizing your skin. Find deeper relief with natural and

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Go to cabotaUSA.com flashed disclaimers for full disclaimers. So those raids earlier this year looked like that were going to be this massive sea change for the scamming industry in Myanmar, but the reality is that not much has actually changed on the ground. So those 7,000 people were rescued, which are detained, which sounds like an enormous number, but when you're looking at possibly 150, maybe 200,000 people involved in the industry over there, it's actually like not even a drop in the ocean.

What has happened was an initial clear out of some of Shweko and some of KK Park, which are two of the biggest, most notorious compounds. But they've just moved to other new entire city compound states that are being developed further down the river. and then even since then a lot of people have moved back to Shwego Co and into KK Park. What it did allow them to do is to make this big song and dance, make a big push for the Thai and the Chinese authorities so that they were doing something, push for again those compounds to not be targeting Chinese speakers, Thai speakers, and to be trafficking less tying Chinese into the compounds.

And it also allowed for journalists to come in and walk around Shweko and, like, pretend that, well not pretend, but like look like it's been ill with, but since then the problems just continued. Those parks have just filled up again and other ones have just developed all along the river. Well, the scams have been a big part of the buildup to this conflict. In the last few months, scams have come up a lot from the Thai side who have been accused in Cambodia of essentially running this mafia scam state. And massively, the ruling family, the Hun family in Cambodia, they have accused them of directly profited. from and directly running this scam empire. And just before the clashes actually began, the Thais issued an arrest warrant for Sokong,

who is one of the biggest scam bosses in Cambodia and even raided a load of his properties in Thailand and even issued arrest warrants for his kids who also have businesses in Thailand. And so the scam stuff was really at the heart of a lot of the tensions between Cambodia and Thailand well before the temple thing actually kicked off into artillery and in gunfire. The thing is though about the feud over the temples, it does sound like insane if you're not from this region. But it's not like, but people do like if you, I think what the war is about if you're like, you know, Hun Sen is very different to what the war is about if you're like the average person in Cambodia or Thailand. because people do get really, really upset about this.

And like to the point that, so like the prime minister, like the Shinnawatra family in Thailand have like for years and years, they've had like a really, really good relationship with the Hun family. Until this year they'd never really fallen out before, even through loads of other border clashes and various different Shinnawatra being prime minister over time. They've always managed to get on. But I think it was in 2009, or 2008-2009,

like Cambodia tried to Cambodia first said that they were going to try and get UNESCO recognition for the Pravehir temple. And in Thailand, like they kind of like, yeah, sure, we'll back that. That's fine. It's all settled now. And people went so insane, like on the right wing, like the right wing that really heavily support the military who see any kind of challenge at the border as being like, oh, they're encroaching on a territory. It's the end of an empire. Like my empire is going to take over it again like they did a thousand years ago. They went so crazy that they actually stormed the government buildings, laid sea.

to it for three months, took over the main airport in Bangkok and grounded all flights for weeks, and then pushed out the Prime Minister and they declared war, like, as in like the protest group declared war on the government. So that's how insane it can get for people when it comes to like kind of clashes at the border. So like it's kind of really easy for, it's always been really easy for the Hun family and the military in Cambodia, not so much the Shennawaters because they only really care about business. So like stir up all this hatred inside their own country whenever they feel like it. But they normally feel, I think they normally think they can kind of contain it, like unleash it when they want when they need like a little bit of like

patchism and nationalism to drive them on and then put it back in its box and it's not useful. I think this time is kind of spiraled out of control because this is the first time that it's been personal because the the border issue has been kind of mixed in with this whole thing about like it's that not they're not just taking, they're not just chipping away at our borders, they're not just claiming our temples. They're also the Cambodians are also built all these scam centers all around the edge of the country and they're like and they're scamming us and they're and exploiting us and, you know, basically they're humiliating us. And it's all Hun Sen's fault.

That's been the narrative, right? So it's the first time that Hun Sen's not been able to separate himself from it. And he kind of like lost his temper with the Shinnawatris or with them, with their, well, with their daughter, Peyton, Patunton, because she, he thought that she hadn't done enough to shut up her own people for criticizing him about the, about these scam centers. So kind of like that was like a big, big trigger for why this has escalated in the way that it has. But what was like really amazing to watch is every other time there's ever been a skirmish at the border, it stayed in that area, right?

It stayed on the northern border. This time, almost immediately when the guns started firing, when the missiles started firing, the ties fired into a place in Passat, which is like on the southwest of the country, absolutely nowhere near any of these temples. The only thing that is there is a huge scam compound. It's got like a mini KKK park really, which is owned by, or do you know, or do. was developed by a very close ally of the Hun family and the Hunsend's nephew has a lot of business interest there and is very connected to it. So it was almost like they were saying, we're going to fire straight into something that's going to hurt you economically to punish you for what's happening at the border and you're not going to say anything about it, which they didn't. It wasn't until like local people were actually publishing images of like what had happened that the

government kind of had to admit this. And even then they were like, oh yeah, they fired on a village, they hit a soldier. They didn't say what had been, what was under attack, right? And it's been the same, it's been the same little loads of other scam centres all around the country where scam centres have been hit with rockets and neither side has said we hit a scam centre or we hear a casino with a rocket. It's when it only comes up when like ordinary people have caught it on video or they're talking about it or their outrage that like there's been damage. But both sides have been really weird about actually admitting what it is they're firing at because I think that the minute that, obviously Cambodia doesn't want to admit

these scams centres exist. Their whole thing is that this is all made up and exaggerated, but the Thailand also, the Thai military also doesn't seem to want to admit that they're firing at these places or they know where these compounds are or they know they're full of people because I think two things will happen. First of all, they will then have to do another northern Myanmar where everyone, if they get raided, everyone moves through Thailand and it's a huge burden on them to actually process all those people to get them home. But also, then they lose all their leverage or whatever they're negotiating quietly with the Huns, whether it's like a cut, whether it's like, don't use Thai people, whether it's like stop complaining about what's

happening on the border or we're going to keep attacking your scam centres. We don't really know what those negotiations are. But the minute that they kind of acknowledge that these scam centres are there and they need to be dismantled, I think they lose all their leverage with the hunts. So yeah, that is the tale of how the criminal romance between a bloodthirsty warlord and the Chinese scam kingpin flourished into one of the global underworld's true success stories. And then it pissed off China and Thailand and Europe and US, cause a refugee crisis, and helps stoke an actual international conflict. It's pretty crazy stuff, but if you listen to our other Myanmar shows, I guess,

Shrey Coco is just pretty par for the pause. Yeah, I mean, that's one of our craziest episodes, I think, ever. And I think that if you guys can somehow just double or triple our Patreon, I can get Sean to go undercover at one of these scam centers. Yes, please. And hopefully eventually get them out too, but we just don't know how long that we do. I do need to shave my hair at some point because I'm getting a little summer over the back. The first part I think we could definitely make happen.

But yeah, I mean, that whole thing is insane. What a diabolical episode. Crazy for you. Just like just insanity. Yeah, thanks guys for listening. How many discounts does USA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, new vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy.

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