🌍 The kidnapping that's rocked a region

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IN TODAY’S EDITION

1️⃣ The kidnapping that’s rocked a region

2️⃣ Diplomats on the move

3️⃣ Lottery of the day

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Hi Intriguer. For some unfortunate reason, I’m frequently on the receiving end of scam calls. I don’t know whether it’s because I: a) present like an easy target, b) have signed up to too many online freebies, or c) am simply unlucky. Maybe it’s all of the above.

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These calls usually involve someone speaking to me in Chinese about a “lost package” that’s stuck in US customs, which requires my urgent attention. Thankfully I’ve now done just about enough compulsory cybersecurity training to spot and dodge these fraudsters.

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Spare a thought though for those in Southeast Asia, who are also suffering from scams — though on a much larger scale. That’s our top story today.

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Ps – Curious what it’s like navigating ties with Russia and China? Don’t miss our candid chat with someone who’s done just that — Lithuania’s high-profile ex-foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis. It’s online, Wed 12th Feb, 10.30am ET. Register here!

THE HEADLINES

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Trump suggests US take Gaza.
Standing next to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu at a White House press conference, the US president has suggested the US should take over Gaza, resettle 2 million Palestinians elsewhere, and turn the strip into a “riviera”. The comments have triggered backlash, while neighbouring Egypt and Jordan have both ruled out accepting any influx of Palestinians.

China keeps yuan steady.
China’s central bank has continued to support the yuan as markets reopen post-Lunar New Year celebrations. By shielding its currency from (rather than facilitating) depreciation, China might be seeking to build goodwill with the US, which has previously accused Beijing of currency manipulation to cushion itself against US tariffs.

USAID staff put on paid leave, overseas offices shut down.
Nearly all 10,000 USAID staff will be placed on leave on Friday, while overseas offices are shuttered and USAID diplomats are recalled to the US. Meanwhile, the entire CIA workforce has now apparently received buy-out offers to quit, in what a CIA spokesperson has described as an effort to “infuse the agency with renewed energy.”

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US Postal Service stops accepting packages from China.
USPS has announced it’s stopped accepting inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong “until further notice”. Letters are exempt. While it’s declined to provide a reason, the move comes a day after Trump closed a tax-free loophole on packages below $800, which had long benefited China-based e-commerce giants like Temu and Shein. Fentanyl manufacturers have also previously imported precursor chemicals from China via mail.

Alphabet shares slide.
Shares in Google’s parent company took a 6% dip on Tuesday, after the tech giant announced it had missed Q4 revenue expectations as AI competition heats up. We wrote about some of the geopolitical insights you can glean from earnings calls here.

Worst-ever mass shooting in Sweden kills 11.
Police say 11 people have been killed (including the gunman) in a shooting at an education centre in Sweden. The motive remains unclear, though authorities have apparently ruled out anything “ideological”.

TOP STORY

The kidnapping that’s rocked a region

Wang Xing (R). Credits: Royal Thai police via AP.

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Imagine this: you’re slamming down that morning Pop-Tart® (frosted apple cinnamon, probably), when you get the call you’ve been waiting for — an opportunity to work on a dream project in Thailand. Your mind instantly runs wild with images of you absolutely chilling on a beach with a cocktail in hand (Sabai Sabai®, probably).

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Anyway, you touch down in Bangkok, shoot a cool nod at the waiting chauffeur (you rehearsed it on the flight), and off you go. But then things get strange — the transfer takes weirdly long, the chauffeur stops answering your questions, and by the time you realise he’s crossing an international border, it’s too late — armed thugs get in, kidnap you, and force you to work at a scam centre in Myanmar.

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We confess to speculating on his Pop-Tart preference (fake news!), but otherwise that’s exactly what happened to Wang Xing, a Chinese actor who, like thousands before him, got lured by human traffickers with the promise of a lucrative job. Wang got lucky — his girlfriend went full Liam Neeson to find him, and her viral post on Weibo ended up forcing authorities in Beijing and Bangkok to prioritise his rescue just last month.

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But Wang’s story is still rippling around the region, which brings us to today’s wild news: Thailand has now announced it’ll cut electricity, internet, and oil to those areas in Myanmar suspected of hosting these scam centres, effective today (Wednesday).

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So let’s backtrack a little — what’s with these scam centres in Myanmar?

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There are now dozens of crime syndicates based across southeast Myanmar, running vast online scam operations that net them billions of dollars every year. Most of these groups fled China after Beijing cracked down on gambling and scam centres in 2020.

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And their particular form of scamming is labour-intensive — nicknamed “pig butchering”, they chat online for months to ‘fatten up’ their potential victims before tricking them into forking over cash. But the mob bosses in charge can’t exactly post job openings on LinkedIn (“strong communication skills required”), so they traffic victims to fill the vacancies from all over Asia, holding them captive and resorting to torture if they don’t follow orders.

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Anyway, according to one Thai official, there are now as many as 300,000 people working across 40 heavily-guarded scam compounds in Myawaddy alone, just over the border.

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Why Myanmar?

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We just passed the four-year anniversary of Myanmar’s coup, when its military hoped to restore its dominance but instead triggered a brutal civil war that’s shrunk its own control down to maybe a third of Myanmar — all warring parties now seem happy to collaborate with crims in exchange for the cash they need to finance their fighting.

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Also, Myanmar (a member of ASEAN) still enjoys visa-free travel across Southeast Asia, which means less official scrutiny for mob bosses.

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So why would Thailand care?

Aside from the obvious challenges of having a civil war raging on your doorstep, these specific scam centres are becoming a real issue for Thailand. That’s because tourism is Thailand’s single-largest industry, employing a fifth of the country’s entire workforce.

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And guess which country is Thailand’s single-largest source of tourists? Yep, China. But with stories like Wang’s going viral, would-be tourists are getting spooked — 10,000 apparently cancelled flights last month alone.

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So Thailand’s leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra has gone into overdrive announcing new tourist security and anti-scammer efforts, and even dropping a video of her speaking AI-generated fluent Mandarin, assuring Chinese tourists it’s very safe to visit.

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And yep, this seems to be working: after an initial dip, tourist numbers are back up.

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So then, why would anyone else care?

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First, aside from the obvious moral outrage in kidnapping one victim to scam another, these criminals are now hitting victims everywhere, raking in $75B worldwide — the US is a top target at around $4B. That’s also putting a premium on kidnapping English-speaking people from (say) Malaysia to help run the scams.

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But second, it’s becoming an image problem for China, too — its tough approach in 2020 displaced but didn’t defeat the mob mosses. And as they now cause havoc elsewhere, they can undermine China’s credibility as a security partner. Interestingly, however, China has also used organised crime as a justification to expand the presence of its police authorities around the world.

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Which brings us to a self-evident yet crucial point that’s a neat place to finish: turmoil, whether from organised crime, war, or political instability, never stops at the border.

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INTRIGUE’S TAKE

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As our rattled world moves to pull up its drawbridges, this story is a reminder that it’s not always so easy to retreat — Myanmar’s civil war not your problem? Fair enough. Until the scammers there start leaving a trail of heartbreak and financial ruin from Miami to Milwaukee.

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It’s also a reminder of how quickly organised crime can pivot. In this case, it first pivoted its location from China to Myanmar. But as the world digests Wang’s kidnapping, you can bet crims will pivot to AI-enabled methods that reduce their reliance on forced labour, too. In fact, that’s already happening. The Thai prime minister herself just got a call from an AI-generated Donald Trump, urging her to transfer some cash.

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Also worth noting:

There’s a hit Mandarin-language crime thriller called No More Bets about a Chinese couple trafficked to one of these cyber compounds. It ended up getting banned in Cambodia (where similar criminal operations exist), and was criticised by the governments of both Thailand and Myanmar, too.
The US, UK and Canada issued sanctions on various ‘scam farm’ bosses in 2023.

MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE…

🇰🇷 South Korea: Korean messaging giant Kakao welcomed OpenAI’s Sam Altman to Seoul yesterday (Tuesday), minting a deal that’ll deploy the US company’s tech on Korea’s mega app. Altman is also set to meet Samsung while in town, just a day after seeing Japan’s SoftBank chair plus the PM himself, Shigeru Ishiba.
🇳🇴 Norway: Former NATO chief and incoming chair of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) Jens Stoltenberg has been recalled back to his home country to serve as Norway’s finance minister after the government’s recent collapse. His Labour Party, or Arbeidarpartiet, is now expected to govern alone until new elections take place in September.
🇮🇩 Indonesia: Jakarta is shifting $61B in state assets into a new investment fund that’ll report directly to President Prabowo Subianto, in legislation passed yesterday (Tuesday). The new fund, Danantara, is aimed at helping to boost growth to 8% within the president’s term.
🇺🇸 US: American tech giant Google has updated its AI ethical guidelines, removing past commitments not to use AI for weapons or surveillance. Google’s head of AI wrote in a blog post that as the technology continues to evolve, the company is updating its principles in line with “widely accepted principles of international law and human rights”.
🇲🇦 Morocco: Major labour groups are calling for the first nationwide strike in almost a decade, in an effort to resume wage talks and roll back pension reforms. Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch is facing growing criticism amid rising unemployment and a lack of progress on the country’s 2035 development plan.

EXTRA INTRIGUE

Diplomats on the move ✈️

🇬🇧 The UK’s national security advisor Jonathan Powell will travel to the US to discuss the Chagos Islands deal with his US counterpart Mike Waltz, ahead of likely Rubio-Lammy talks at next week’s Munich Security Conference.
🇦🇷 Argentina’s foreign minister Gerardo Werthein is visiting Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, focused on investment ties but also meeting with the relatives of Argentine hostages still being held by Hamas.
Foreign ministers from 🇨🇿 Czechia, 🇪🇪 Estonia, 🇱🇹 Lithuania, and 🇱🇻 Latvia are in DC this week, taking meetings at State and at various conferences across town.
And 🇮🇷 Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, has told Russian media this week the two countries will sign an agreement starting construction on a North-South International Transport Corridor in March.

LOTTERY OF THE DAY

Credits: Constitutional Court of Korea X Account.

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Remember Yoon Suk Yeol? Yoon was South Korea’s president until he declared martial law, hit ctrl-z, then locked himself in the presidential quarters, eventually being impeached and then arrested in January on charges of abuse of power and leading an insurrection.

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Anyway, given the passions it’s stirred, Korea’s Constitutional Court is now offering (above) lottery tickets for front row seats at the impeached president’s next hearing tomorrow (Thursday).

DAILY POLL

Do you consider a country’s security updates before booking a holiday?

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Yesterday’s poll: What principles do you think should govern foreign aid?

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🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ ✊ National interest — it’s taxpayer money after all (43%)

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🌎 Collective interests — we’re all in this together (54%)

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⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (3%)

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Your two cents:

🌎 S.B: “Helping others is always in the national interest because at some point you need help too.”
✊ G.P: “Normally I would say there is collective interest but in the current global atmosphere it has become a tool in competition.”
🌎 E.K.H: “If your national interests aren’t aligned with vaccines, and books, and food for all, then maybe you need to rethink your priorities.”
✍️ C.G: “The US has effectively given up on competing with Belt and Road. China (along with dozens of its new friends) is going to love this.”

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