Full of online fraud activities: The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone at Mekong river in the north of Laos
David Hutt, a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS), analyzes on rfa.org, what happened lately in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in the north of Laos. Since August hundreds of people have been arrested due to their involvement in online fraud activities. Hutt writes that in Cambodia and Myanmar scamming tends to be geographically dispersed with compounds across the country and controlled by different syndicates. In Laos the industry was, until very recently, almost entirely centered in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, an autonomous area long notorious for organized crime and run by the Chinese casino mogul Zhao Wei and his Kings Roman Group, which has close ties to organized crime.
David Hutt argues, that Zhao Wei and his associates had established laundering trails to China and Myanmar years earlier, it meant that, unlike in Cambodia, most of the revenue from the scam industry immediately left Laos. This limited the amount of money needing to be recycled or laundered through local conglomerates, thus reducing the sums needed to corrupt Laotian officials, politicians, and tycoons. Hutt thinks that officials, especially those outside Bokeo province where the SEZ is located, weren’t contaminated by scam money, so they were not interested in protecting the racket. This makes it easier to conteract the scam industry. In May, the Lao government reshuffled the leadership of Bokeo province, according to Hutt ostensibly to clean out officials who had been bought off.
Then there is the Chinese Communist Party, which wants to crack down on the scam industry in Southeast Asia after many Chinese people have been victims of fraud activities. The Laotian government, which relies almost entirely on Chinese investment for economic growth and on Chinese debt, "cannot say no when Beijing orders it to move on the scammers", Hutt comments. The raids on the Golden Triangle SEZ came just weeks after Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi visited Vientiane.
But Hutt thinks, that the Laotian government wants to push Zhao Wei and his associates enough for some smaller operators to flee the country, but not enough that the Golden Triangle SEZ collapses. Hutt points to the fact, that in Laos the online scam sector could be worth as much as the equivalent of 40 percent of the formal economy (according to a United States Institute of Peace report earlier this year). It is estimated that criminal gangs could be holding as many as 85,000 workers in slave-like conditions in compounds in Laos.
