Woman loses almost half a million to AI scammer

[unicorn]

A woman here in Los Angeles lost $431,000 to a scammer who sent her AI images on WhatsApp, convincing her that soap opera actor Steve Burton (who's married) was in love with her and needed the money. 🫢

 

 

https://people.com/woman-loses-life-savings-after-scammers-use-ai-to-pose-as-general-hospital-star-11800052

"...KABC reported that the scammers first approached Ruvalcaba on Facebook Messenger before switching over to WhatsApp. She told KTLA that she initially sent more than $81,000 before selling her family's condo and giving the $350,000 in proceeds to the scammer. Ruvalcaba's daughter Vivian told the outlets that her mother has been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and said the victim believed it when the fake Burton told her he needed money after his home was destroyed in a fire...".

The daughter is trying to make the company who purchased the property held responsible for the loss, arguing that Mrs. Ruvalcaba lacked the mental capacity to sell her home, but I can't see how that could be successful. If that lawsuit were successful, that would imply that all home sellers would be required to undergo a mental health assessment by a mental health professional to certify mental capacity. Unless a court had previously determined that she was incompetent, the buyer would have no way of knowing of any alleged mental health problems. 

[PeterRS]

Samming has become a huge business. We know that here in Asia there are some 250,000 people who have been trafficked from many countries to work in scam centres almost all of which are located in Myanmar near the border with Thailand. It seems that all arrive in Bangkok having been promised all manner of jobs before being whisked to the border and their new life of utter misery. The Thai authorities know this but seem to do little about it. A Report published by USIP in 2024 stated that Myanmar scam activities had netted US$64 billion by the end of 2023!

[unicorn]

The way to stop these scams, or at least slow them down quite a bit, is to go after the scammers.

[PeterRS]

19 hours ago, unicorn said:

The way to stop these scams, or at least slow them down quite a bit, is to go after the scammers.

Absolutely true. But . . . and it is a huge but. Regarding Asia how do you go after the scammers when the scam centres are located in a country like Myanmar which has been in an horrendous state of civil was for nearly eight decades? A country in which the rule of law hardly exists and where hundreds of thousands of people, mostly young, who lost so much during the covid years were enticed by false promises of better jobs with better salaries? The Thais and Chinese, along with a few from Myanmar, have been trying to put an end to this but zero success. Originally the scam centres were based in the country's Shan State - just one Myanmar State which is almost four times larger than Switzerland. When the Chinese in particular turned up the heat, the scammers just moved their operations further down the eastern border into lawless Karen State.

Please read the BBC link below and watch the video embedded in it if you want to understand how impossible it is to stop the scammers. The huge city of Shwe Kokko was built in just seven years with the sole intention of using it as a massive scam centre.

"The scams have grown into a multi-billion dollar business. They involve thousands of workers from China, South East Asia, Africa and the Indian subcontinent kept in walled-off compounds where they defraud people all over the world of their savings. Some work there willingly, but others are abducted and forced to work. Those who have escaped have told harrowing stories of torture and beatings. Some have come from Shwe Kokko."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04nx1vnw17o

[unicorn]

3 hours ago, PeterRS said:

...how do you go after the scammers when the scam centres are located in a country like Myanmar which has been in an horrendous state of civil was for nearly eight decades? A country in which the rule of law hardly exists...

I'm definitely no expert in that area. It seems, though, that the country's splintered, and all fighting each other. I would think that if the Thai or the Chinese wanted to, they could tell whatever militia is controlling that area to cut the crap, or they'd do it themselves, that this militia would have to listen? Aren't the Thai and the Chinese in a better position? Why would they accept having their citizens trafficked and enslaved? Could the local militia really thumb their noses at the Thai or Chinese while they're fighting their own countrymen at the same time? 

[10tazione]

Is it still safe to visit Mae Sot? I would like to visit that area. As a farang, Is there a danger of being abducted and dragged across the border and being locked into a scam center?

[PeterRS]

Everything @unicorn writes is mostly logical - apart from the fact you are are dealing with a country in the midst of a ghastly eight decade civil war. There is no one authority in the country. It has a total of 135 different ethnic minorities. Even China which has a population over 26 times larger than that of Myanmar only has 56 different minorities. The Thais basically do not like the Myanmar people and they are not going to do anything to stop illegal activites over the border unless it has some direct effect on Thailand and its people. China has its fingers in both pies - it supplies weapons to the ruling military junta (which now has control over well under half the country) and also arms some of the militias (of which there are many dozens). Although there are a great many Chinese living in the Shan State (which borders China's Yunnan Province), there are far fewer in the Karen State. In any case, many of the Chinese in the Shan State are up to their eyes in coruption and illegal activities.

Incidentally, I think the number of Thais and Chinese in the scam centres is quite small. The scam of the Myanmar operation was largely brought to world attention earlier in the year when one of those hijacked to work in the centres was a well-known Chinese TV actor, Wang Zing. He was rescued thanks to Thai/Chinese cooperation. As for Thailand and/or China invading Myanmar, think again. No country is going to invade another merely to stamp out illegal activities. None!

But China has other reasons for not interfering too much, and not only because large Chinese companies have a direct imvolvement in operating the scam centres. China's long term object has for almost a century been securing its borders. The border with Myanmar is a very long 2,129 kms. It wants that safe and secure. Secondly it has a vast number of smaller investments, some legal, in the Shan State many overseen by ethnic Chinese. Thirdly, and most importantly, it is constructing major gas and oil piplines through the country linkng China with the Andaman Sea. It also plays a key part in President Xi's Belt & Road initiative with the construction of a major railroad again linking China with the Andaman Sea. It has several times tried to broker some form of peace and there have been I think three meetings with senior Chinese leaders in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, to try and hammer something out. The Chinese Foreign Minister even visited Myanmar in August last year but with again no success.

Of interest, I think, is the absolute lack of action in any way by the USA, the world's policeman. Myanmar is the fourth largest country in Asia - twice the size of Japan. With China involved, most of ASEAN involved and Russia involved (solely on the side of the ruling junta), the USA has sat on its hands on the sidelines. Yet the massive sanctions imposed on Myanmar have little effect. Myanmar companies operate out of Bangkok. Singapore sits on the fence. In June 2024 its Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, "“Legitimate trade and financial links between Singapore and Myanmar are necessary to support the livelihoods of the Myanmar people." Despite Obama having assured the Burmese on an official visit in 2012 that “one of the things that we can do as an international community is make sure that the people of Burma know we’re paying attention to them, we’re listening to them, we care about them.” Those words proved to be competely hollow as the USA has done precious little to assist the mass of the ordinary Burmese.

Biden did at least try to get a bill through Congress. In April 2022 the BURMA Act aimed at providing financial aid for the militias sailed through the House of Congress with bipartisan support. It then was killed in the Senate! US sanctions continue to hit certain industries, but oddly not the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. This is a state enterprise which provides much of the income required by the military juntas. One of the fields at Yadana mostly suppies gas to Thailand. Go figure! It's all a ghastly mess and it's the ordinary people of Myanmar who, in the words of Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights Commissioner,  have been suffering mightily for decades. "unbearable levels of cruelty and suffering" and are mired in this "unending nightmare."

[unicorn]

9 hours ago, PeterRS said:

... The Thais basically do not like the Myanmar people and they are not going to do anything to stop illegal activites over the border unless it has some direct effect on Thailand and its people...

Wouldn't the abduction and enslavement of Thai citizens into Myanmar qualify? If US citizens were being abducted and enslaved into another country, I doubt the US would sit on its hands (unless, of course, the foreign country had an extremely powerful military, such as China or North Korea). 

[PeterRS]

7 hours ago, unicorn said:

Wouldn't the abduction and enslavement of Thai citizens into Myanmar qualify? If US citizens were being abducted and enslaved into another country, I doubt the US would sit on its hands (unless, of course, the foreign country had an extremely powerful military, such as China or North Korea). 

Frankly I just do not know. But surely there are plenty of instances of people being abducted from one country to another where the country from which the person was abducted resorts to little more than diplomatic means? Some, like China, possibly Russia and perhaps a handful of others, find covert ways of returning individual citizens, usually citizens they believe to have broken their laws. Unilaterally invading another country invites all sorts of major, major problems, the more so when the citizens involved have willingly made the move - willingly but under false pretences.

Besides, who knows precisely who and how many have been abducted from any one country? If, say, Thailand invaded Myanmar to rescue a dozen citizens, what if it unknowingly left behind two dozen more? The PR consequences would be very detrimental. Myanmar is a huge country and the scam centres are not just located in one place.

Has any country anywhere been able to solve the business of the trafficking of its people? Not to my knowledge. The UN estimates that human trafficking is one of the world's fastest growing crimes. At any time it further estimates that in 2021 27.6 million had been trafficked worldwide.

https://www.dhs.gov/human-trafficking-quick-facts

https://2021-2025.state.gov/humantrafficking-about-human-trafficking/