The rescue team, by leveraging various personal connections and negotiating with scam parks, finds paying ransom to save people a quick and efficient method. However, this approach of finding connections and paying compensation for rescue is also somewhat controversial.
By the end of 2023, the Kokang region in northern Shan State of Myanmar was recaptured by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, leading to the arrest and deportation of a large number of individuals involved in online scams back to China from old Kokang streets, or scattering to the Golden Triangle areas of Myanmar's Daqi, Laos's Golden Triangle Special Zone, and Myawaddy in eastern Myanmar, as well as Sihanoukville in Cambodia.
In the Golden Triangle area, at the beginning of 2024, Chinese police cooperated with Myanmar military police to clean up the Daqi scam parks; after April 2024, Chinese and Laotian police jointly arrested scam personnel within the Golden Triangle Special Zone. Myawaddy, known as the "final station of a dog's life," became the last stronghold of the scam industry.
Myawaddy is located in the eastern part of Myanmar's Karen State, just across the shallow Moei River from Mae Sot, Thailand. Although since May 2023, the Thai government has suspended the entry and exit of foreigners, especially Chinese, from the Mae Sot port at the request of the Chinese government, it still cannot prevent Chinese from smuggling into Myawaddy through the "natural passages" on the Moei River.
The surrounding area of Myawaddy is rife with transnational organized crime, including illegal gambling, online scams, money laundering, and further deriving issues such as drug trafficking, prostitution, and human trafficking. Tens of thousands of trafficked victims are confined by the parks, forced to endure poor living conditions and coerced into fraudulent activities under high pressure. The rescue of trafficking victims has become a focal point of public concern.
Commander Zhang has been almost sleepless for three days and nights.
Lately, Commander Zhang has several people to rescue, each more troublesome than the last. Recently, Commander Zhang met a fellow countryman in Myawaddy, whose home is less than 40 kilometers from Commander Zhang's home. The two hit it off well, and the fellow countryman occasionally sent Commander Zhang some photos of his visits to various parks in Myawaddy, claiming he had the ability to rescue people from scam parks. Commander Zhang thought the fellow had some capability, so he tentatively asked him to rescue someone from the Hongtu Property in Asia-Pacific City of Myawaddy.
Asia-Pacific City, located in the ditch valley area outside Myawaddy town, is known as the world's largest scam park. However, the management committee of Asia-Pacific City considers themselves merely park managers, essentially a huge property management company. A report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on online scams and human trafficking in Southeast Asia states that criminal groups often portray themselves as legitimate commercial entities, even charitable organizations.
The land of Asia-Pacific City is open for external bidding and transfer, and companies that purchase land to develop and build are called secondary developers, which also establish property companies to manage their properties, known as "secondary properties." Hongtu Property is such a company. In the words of the grassroots scam workers, the "black property" helps scam companies enforce corporal punishment, restricts employees' freedom under the guise of closed management. Hongtu Property is one of the top black properties in Asia-Pacific City.
Upon Commander Zhang's request, the fellow countryman agreed without hesitation and soon sent Commander Zhang a video of the rescue target at a company in Hongtu Property. Commander Zhang promptly transferred 180,000 yuan for the fellow to negotiate compensation. After receiving the money, the fellow started making various excuses and playing disappearing acts, not answering calls. Commander Zhang had a bad feeling about it.
Commander Zhang stubbed out his cigarette butt, with three empty cigarette boxes already on the ground. Looking up, it was already dawn, just past five in the morning. Since scam parks mostly operate at night, Commander Zhang had another sleepless night. He quickly washed up and went to the hospital to see his wife.
Commander Zhang's wife, in her forties in 2024, is an older pregnant woman. In the past two years, she successfully conceived their second child through IVF. Recently, she showed signs of premature labor and has been staying in the hospital for fetal protection. Commander Zhang's money was managed by his wife, about 80,000 yuan in total. Commander Zhang thought of taking this money to repay the victim's family first.
Seeing Commander Zhang's distracted appearance, his wife sensed that something went wrong with the cases he handled. In previous rescue cases, once confirmed for intervention, the people would be rescued within two days, but this time there had been no movement for three days. His wife calmly suggested that if the pressure was too great, he should stop after this case. Then, without making a fuss, she transferred 80,000 yuan to her husband.
While Commander Zhang was gathering funds to return the rescue money, he also went to the police station to report and threaten the fellow countryman to show up, and sought help from his various friends in Thailand. His phone kept ringing non-stop, heating up from the calls.
At this time, Commander Zhang's fellow countryman finally showed up, proving he was not intentionally deceiving and also provided the recent reason for his disappearance: the situation in Myawaddy had been severe these days, the mobile base station was bombed, and the signal was bad. The Karen Liberation Army had already reached the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge in Myawaddy, and the Asia-Pacific City Business Department issued a notice that the reporting of entries and exits to Asia-Pacific City was temporarily suspended, and all "traffic" in and out of Myawaddy had stopped. Even if people were rescued, they could not leave. The fellow specially went to the Hongtu park area again and took a video on the scene for Commander Zhang. At this time, Commander Zhang's friends in Thailand also managed to find connections in Hongtu, heard that the person had appeared in the park, and immediately mobilized security to search. In the end, after reviewing the surveillance footage, they were one step late; the person had already left. The clue was interrupted again. Commander Zhang's heart, which had just been put down, was clenched again.
Hongtu Property investigated the company involved and found that no one had come to negotiate compensation. But indeed, someone had come to the company before and took a video of the person seeking help, claiming that his family member had cancer and was dying, wanting to see his son for the last time. Hongtu Property quickly found the person who came to the park to take the video and through this person, they extracted the address of the scammer. The security of Hongtu Property stormed into the hotel, kicked open the room door, and caught Commander Zhang's scammer fellow countryman.
The money finally had a resolution. Commander Zhang breathed a sigh of relief, went to the hospital again, and hesitantly told his wife about the situation. His wife remained calm, saying she had sensed it early on. Commander Zhang's wife had seen bigger scenes before; she was only five months pregnant at that time. Commander Zhang managed to rescue a Chinese from a company in the KK park area of Myawaddy, but was intercepted by the park property when leaving.
During that time, the "Four Big Families" of the old street in northern Myanmar, as the heads of 10 protective umbrellas for scam parks, were extradited back to China as major criminals of organized crime, deterring the Myanmar scam interest groups. Myawaddy's KK park area, notorious as "Gayaizi," was the first to open management, allowing people trapped in the park who were willing to go home to register with the property, arranging for them to return home uniformly. KK park area issued a notice explicitly prohibiting the buying and selling of people, the labor contracts of park companies were forcibly shortened to one year, and the compensation for employees leaving was uniformly set at 60,000 yuan, with 5,000 deducted for each month worked, and zero compensation after one year. Individuals who paid the transportation fees could go home; if they could not afford the fees, they would wait for the park and Chinese police to coordinate, arrange uniformly, and simultaneously prohibit companies from releasing people privately.
Eventually, the person Commander Zhang rescued, according to the KK park area process, was sent to Bangkok Airport. After arriving at the airport, the person reneged and did not return to China, buying himself a ticket to Dubai and continuing to engage in scams. The family members in contact with Commander Zhang did not receive the person as agreed at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport, cursed Commander Zhang as a scammer, rushed to Commander Zhang's house to make a scene, and demanded a refund.
The matter continued to cause a commotion at the police station, with Commander Zhang frantically trying to prove his innocence. He proved that the person was indeed rescued from the park and left the airport on his own. "If it weren't for the video from KK park area to Bangkok Airport all the way, and finally finding someone to check the flight through connections," Commander Zhang said with lingering fear, "I almost got arrested by the police as a scammer." The matter eventually fizzled out.
At this time, Commander Zhang's fellow countryman showed up again, proving he was not intentionally deceiving and also provided the recent reason for his disappearance: the situation in Myawaddy had been severe these days, the mobile base station was bombed, and the signal was bad. The Karen Liberation Army had already reached the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge in Myawaddy, and the Asia-Pacific City Business Department issued a notice that the reporting of entries and exits to Asia-Pacific City was temporarily suspended, and all "traffic" in and out of Myawaddy had stopped. Even if people were rescued, they could not leave. The fellow specially went to the Hongtu park area again and took a video on the scene for Commander Zhang. At this time, Commander Zhang's friends in Thailand also managed to find connections in Hongtu, heard that the person had appeared in the park, and immediately mobilized security to search. In the end, after reviewing the surveillance footage, they were one step late; the person had already left. The clue was interrupted again. Commander Zhang's heart, which had just been put down, was clenched again.
Hongtu Property investigated the company involved and found that no one had come to negotiate compensation. But indeed, someone had come to the company before and took a video of the person seeking help, claiming that his family member had cancer and was dying, wanting to see his son for the last time. Hongtu Property quickly found the person who came to the park to take the video and through this person, they extracted the address of the scammer. The security of Hongtu Property stormed into the hotel, kicked open the room door, and caught Commander Zhang's scammer fellow countryman.
The money finally had a resolution. Commander Zhang breathed a sigh of relief, went to the hospital again, and hesitantly told his wife about the situation. His wife remained calm, saying she had sensed it early on. Commander Zhang's wife had seen bigger scenes before; she was only five months pregnant at that time. Commander Zhang managed to rescue a Chinese from a company in the KK park area of Myawaddy, but was intercepted by the park property when leaving.
During that time, the "Four Big Families" of the old street in northern Myanmar, as the heads of 10 protective umbrellas for scam parks, were extradited back to China as major criminals of organized crime, deterring the Myanmar scam interest groups. Myawaddy's KK park area, notorious as "Gayaizi," was the first to open management, allowing people trapped in the park who were willing to go home to register with the property, arranging for them to return home uniformly. KK park area issued a notice explicitly prohibiting the buying and selling of people, the labor contracts of park companies were forcibly shortened to one year, and the compensation for employees leaving was uniformly set at 60,000 yuan, with 5,000 deducted for each month worked, and zero compensation after one year. Individuals who paid the transportation fees could go home; if they could not afford the fees, they would wait for the park and Chinese police to coordinate, arrange uniformly, and simultaneously prohibit companies from releasing people privately.
Eventually, the person Commander Zhang rescued, according to the KK park area process, was sent to Bangkok Airport. After arriving at the airport, the person reneged and did not return to China, buying himself a ticket to Dubai and continuing to engage in scams. The family members in contact with Commander Zhang did not receive the person as agreed at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport, cursed Commander Zhang as a scammer, rushed to Commander Zhang's house to make a scene, and demanded a refund.
The matter continued to cause a commotion at the police station, with Commander Zhang frantically trying to prove his innocence. He proved that the person was indeed rescued from the park and left the airport on his own. "If it weren't for the video from KK park area to Bangkok Airport all the way, and finally finding someone to check the flight through connections," Commander Zhang said with lingering fear, "I almost got arrested by the police as a scammer." The matter eventually fizzled out.
Commander Zhang was washed by the river, his waist stuck between large rocks in the middle of the river, unable to get his head above water. At the critical moment of life and death, he exerted his last strength to push the rocks on both sides. Suddenly, his waist loosened, and he was washed downstream, swallowing several mouthfuls of water. Growing up by the river, he said with lingering fear, "I've never drunk so much water in the river in my life," "80 meters downstream, there was a Burmese military station, luckily there was a big tree in the middle of the river, he grabbed the tree branches, climbed to the opposite bank, and reached Thailand, otherwise he would have been fished out by the Burmese soldiers, not dead but severely injured."
After returning to China from Thailand, Commander Zhang made a detailed video of his escape experience and posted it on TikTok, originally intending to expose the unscrupulous park owner Mr. Gao, but inadvertently, he became an anti-scam internet celebrity. As his fame grew, both those who could rescue and those seeking rescue approached him.
Commander Zhang considers his role in the rescue as akin to a "guarantee platform," where he collects compensation funds from parents, ensuring that after the payment, the personnel are definitely rescued from the park, preventing families from losing both money and people. At the same time, he ensures that after the rescue agent rescues the person, they can smuggle the person back to the country, and then pay the rescue personnel. In this process, he charges a certain fee.
The aforementioned KK park area rescue case, the family specifically requested Commander Zhang's intervention based on the concern of losing both money and people. The family paid the ransom, the agent took the person away from the company, but then sold the person to another park, which is not uncommon. These days, a single mother from Yunnan posted a missing person notice; her underage son was deceived into Myawaddy, paid the compensation, the son was taken away from the park by the agent, did not return home, and was sold to the Yulongwan park area, and has been out of contact for a year.
Another typical case handled by Commander Zhang was a rescue case in the TTM park area. Commander Zhang let the family find out the price paid to the park area themselves, which was 200,000 yuan. He went to negotiate in the middle, ensuring the personnel were sent back to the country gate, then charged an additional smuggling fee of about 30,000 yuan, and a total labor fee of 50,000 yuan, through his connections in Myawaddy, he managed to get the person from the park area and sent them to the Mae Sot Immigration Office in Thailand.
But Commander Zhang's rescues were also stumbling.
A few days ago, Commander Zhang managed to find connections, rushed into a hotel in Mae Sot to rescue two Chinese about to be sold to Myawaddy, the hotel front desk intentionally gave the wrong room number, leading to the wrong people being taken. At this time, no one dared to storm the hotel again, they could only keep shouting on the street, eventually letting the two people walk out of the hotel themselves to be rescued.
This hotel is a well-known "safe house" for the underworld, providing shelter for people with passport and visa issues coming and going. This action angered the underworld, the person leading the hotel raid had to apologize in person afterwards through connections, promising not to offend again. Each rescued person's family paid a ransom of ten thousand dollars for this.
Commander Zhang is not an old hand in the rescue industry, not knowing that the gray industry personnel running the hotel would not forcibly capture people on the streets of Mae Sot. If the rescued people dared to walk out of the hotel themselves and hide in a safe place, the rescuers could then assist without having to pay a ransom. Sammy, a veteran rescuer from Taiwan, had once rescued a person in this way.
Sammy is Taiwanese, with a prominent reputation in the anti-human trafficking rescue circle. He had been doing business in Cambodia early on and had been involved in rescuing Taiwanese trapped in the Westport park area of Cambodia. However, since 2023, Sammy has also been facing one issue after another.
After the Spring Festival in 2023, Sammy found himself blacklisted by the Laos Golden Triangle Special Zone, unable to enter the special zone. This probably had to do with his rescue of an American Taiwanese from the Baisheng park area in Myawaddy during the Spring Festival. Baisheng Company is an industry of the Bai family from the old street of northern Myanmar, moved to Myawaddy after the old street fell. The gray industries of northern Myanmar, the Golden Triangle, and eastern Myanmar in Myawaddy are closely connected, and news spreads quickly.
In the gray industry of
