If China and the U.S. are Both Against These People, They Must Be bad

As of March: My nine most recent invitations from LinkedIn

We posted about "pig butchering" earlier:

Scammers involved in this practice, which started as early as 2017 in China, create fake profiles on social media sites or dating sites, connect with victims, build virtual and often romantic relationships, and eventually persuade the victims to transfer over their assets. The scammers themselves came up with the name “pig butchering,” comparing the intensive and long-term process of gaining victims’ trust to raising a pig for slaughter.

I have never connected with any of the attractive Asian women who send me invitations on LinkedIn. Nevertheless, I still get 1-2 requests to connect every week. It's annoying.

China, which was suspected of being one of the sources of the scam, has cracked down on pig butchering:

In recent months, China has unleashed its most aggressive effort to crack down on the proliferation of the scam mills, reaching beyond its territory and netting thousands of people in mass arrests. Its main target is a notorious stretch of its border with Myanmar controlled by narcotics traffickers and warlords.

Five suspects, flanked by Myanmar police,
were turned over to China. (WSJ)

For decades, frontier fiefdoms such as those in Myanmar have been havens for gambling and trafficking of everything from drugs to wildlife to people. Now, they are dens for pig-butchering operations.

The scammers operate out of secretive, dystopian compounds, many of which are run by Chinese fugitives who fled their country to places where it was easier to flout the law. They cheat Chinese citizens out of billions of dollars each year, as well as victims across the globe. The U.S. Treasury Department in September warned Americans about the scams...

For Beijing, it is a significant source of embarrassment that Chinese criminals are at the center of scams ensnaring people the world over, said Jason Tower, Myanmar country director for the United States Institute of Peace, an independent research organization founded by the U.S. Congress that specializes in conflict mitigation.

China is “quite sensitive to the narratives that could potentially emerge,” he said. “These are largely Chinese crime groups which China, for years, did very little to check.”

Although the crooks will regroup and move on to other locales, this effort will save many thousands of people from being scammed in the immediate future.