Chinese Actor Wang Xing was Trafficked By Scammers With Ties to Online Gambling

A beloved Chinese actor, Wang Xing, has been found by Thai police who they say was trafficked to a region near the Myanmar region known for various scams that include online gambling.

Chinese state-owned newspaper The Global Times reported Monday that the family of Wang Xing requested help from the Chinese Embassy in Thailand after the actor went missing at the Thailand-Myanmar border.

Authorities found Wang on Tuesday in Myanmar and brought him to Thailand for questioning, Thai police said. Photos and videos showed Wang sitting with the police in the Thai border town of Mae Sot with his head shaved.

Wang told the police that he was lured by a promise of a job casting by a major Thai entertainment company, but instead was taken across the border into Myanmar, where police believe he was put to work in a call scam operation targeting Chinese people, said Senior Inspector General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot.

China's crackdown on cyber scams has thus far netted thousands of suspected culprits.

In recent years, media reports have uncovered instances of young people being lured to places in Cambodia or Myanmar for high-paying jobs, only to be forced to work as scammers. Rescue organizations say people are regularly beaten or face physical punishments such as being forced to run laps if they don’t perform well.

In one of the more brazen schemes, CSIS reports on how these scammers used fake identities and credentials to front companies operated by Chinese criminal groups and were able to secure European football club sponsorships to advertise gambling sites throughout stadiums or on players’ jerseys. After attracting victims to their sites, criminal groups rely on an advanced technology suite that includes software, domain name system configurations, web hosting, payment systems, and mobile apps to extract profit. These operations utilize trafficked labor to run the online gambling operations and provide customer support.