Taking a short cut through Pattaya’s “Scammer Alley”, a neon maze of bars, hotpot restaurants and 24-hour Korean barbecue joints, taxi driver May shakes her head.
The money washing around this Thai resort is so thick with fraud that even her own bank account has been frozen.
“It’s not just me, ask every driver, every small business here,” she told This Week in Asia, giving only one name for fear of losing her access to funds entirely. “They’re all being frozen out.”
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The Chinese criminal gangs behind Southeast Asia’s scam centres
The Chinese criminal gangs behind Southeast Asia’s scam centres
Hers is just one story in the wider Mekong region now awash with billions of dollars in stolen funds churned out each year by sprawling cyber-fraud operations.
