How many victims are there in the horrific “China Town”?
The abuse described by the people I interviewed was even more brutal than I had imagined.
Those who failed to meet the fraudulent performance standards would be beaten, starved, or sold from one fraudulent organization to another. One person said he saw someone being forcibly injected with methamphetamine to increase productivity. Several others said they witnessed people being killed and then portrayed as suicides.
A 19-year-old girl from the Mekong Delta region in Vietnam told me, “I’m scared every day.” She was trapped in Cambodia and her family had to pay a ransom of about $3,400 for her release.
41-year-old Malaysian, Bilce Tan, with a square face and an outgoing personality, told me that he responded to a recruitment advertisement on the JobStreet website looking for “telemarketers”. The ad promised free round-trip tickets to Cambodia, a monthly salary of $1,000 to $2,000 plus bonuses, a “comfortable, cozy office and friendly colleagues,” and “attendance rewards.”
During an online interview, the recruiter told him that the company was in the telecommunications business and hired him for a better business development position. He was informed that the job location was in Sihanoukville, on the west coast of Cambodia, and the company would provide him with dormitories near the office. In May 2022, he flew to Phnom Penh.
A middle-aged man driving a black box truck picked him up at the airport, and then three other people got in the car. Tan immediately sensed that something was off when he tried to chat with them. “They were silent and told me to shut up,” he said. “I felt like a criminal and they were like police.”
By the time he arrived at the new workplace, it was already dark. The so-called “office” turned out to be a large building on a hilltop. It was very dark and he could only see limited things, but he could tell that it didn’t look like a normal company. Street lights illuminated the road, and security guards patrolled with sticks and guns. The building was surrounded by barbed wire fences and surveillance cameras were everywhere.
“This is my first time in Cambodia,” Tan said. “I thought to myself, what the hell is this place?”
A manager was waiting for him at the entrance and took him to the dormitory. He spent a restless night there, as it was not the kind of dormitory he had imagined. The next day, another manager took him to the office where he would work. There were ten employees in the room, each with two computer screens and ten mobile phones. Inside were fake accounts with photos of men or women, depending on the gender of the targeted victims. He had two fake identities, named “Lily” and “Angelina”. He received a script and a potential list of victims, and underwent training on how to approach different types of targets, with single parents being the easiest to deceive.
“We would introduce ourselves first,” Tan told me. “Then the other person would start telling their story.”
The fraud group taught him not to push the victims to download the app, but to suggest how much money they could make and wait for the victims to bring it up themselves, just like Vicky did to me. “When they ask questions, that’s when we strike,” Tan said. “We start showing them the cryptocurrency website and teach them how to register.”
Like Vicky, Tan also said that he would ask the victims to send Tether. The boss used Tether to evade investigation. “It’s safer this way,” Tan told me. “We’re worried that someone might trace our money laundering, and Tether cannot be traced.”
Tan didn’t want to deceive people, but if his performance fell short, he would be electrocuted, locked in a room as punishment, or even sold to another fraud organization.
Tan brought three mobile phones to Cambodia, and upon arrival, he hid them in the dormitory. One night, he called his family, but somehow he was discovered. They pushed him onto a chair, pointed a gun at his head, and beat him. Then, they locked him in a closet, on the dark floor, with blood flowing from his legs, for several days. They wouldn’t let him use the bathroom and only gave him white rice, but he couldn’t eat. “Breathing was difficult, and I felt dizzy,” he said.
After being released, the manager warned him to take care of himself or face the consequences. Later, with the help of someone whose identity he didn’t want to reveal, he managed to escape. He asked me not to disclose the details to protect the identity of his lifesaver, but he said the escape process involved hiding under a pile of cardboard boxes. “Just like a kidnapping case in a Hollywood movie,” he said. Once he escaped the fraud base, he flew back to Malaysia. He only spent three weeks in Cambodia and considered himself lucky to have made it out alive.
“I have to let the whole world know what happened,” Tan said. “We need more people to know about this and save the people inside.”
The severity of this issue is extremely alarming. Many victims are locked up in a giant complex called “China Town,” possibly with up to 6,000 people detained. Hacker Wu Mingxiao told me, “It’s one of the most terrifying places on Earth.” If each person has to reach a minimum threshold of defrauding $300 a day (a figure I heard from some victims), then this complex alone generates over $600 million in illegal revenue annually.
Without cryptocurrency, this fraud complex wouldn’t be able to operate. Crypto enthusiasts often claim that anonymous payments on the blockchain, which cannot be traced, will somehow help the poor in the world. But they don’t seem to bother understanding what their technology is actually being used for. I had to see it for myself.
This article is an excerpt from the book “Bi Zhang Wu Yi: Jia Mi Huo Bi, Yi Chang Shi Ji Jiou?” (Rising Coins: Cryptocurrency, an Epic Scam?) by Zeke Faux, translated by Hong Huifang, published by Zao’an Finance.
Book Title: Rising Coins: Cryptocurrency, an Epic Scam?
Author: Zeke Faux
Translator: Hong Huifang
Publisher: Zao’an Finance
Publication Date: January 2025
Author Bio:
Zeke Faux is an investigative journalist for Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg News, as well as a National Fellow at New America.
He is known for his in-depth reporting on financial crimes, fraud, and exposing the dark side of the financial industry, helping the public understand the hidden risks and potential impacts in the complex modern economic system. He has received top honors in the financial news industry, including the Gerald Loeb Award and the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award.
He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three children.