04/07/2024, 15:09 South Africa needs to play African leadership role to address Chinese mafia cyber-slave expansion - The
sion - The Africa Report.com
EARLY WARNING
Chinese mafia cyber‑slave expansion into South Africa
By David Whitehouse
Reserved for subscribers
Posted on June 24, 2024 05:00
Former triad leader Wan Kuok-koi, alias ‘Broken Tooth’, after his release from prison in Macau, China, on 1 December 2012.
(REUTERS/Tyrone Siu)
A Chinese mafia gang called the Hongmen established a presence in
South Africa early this year, according to the United States Institute of
Peace.
Africa must develop a response to the threat posed by the expansion of Chinese mafia
gangs needing to diversify their operations away from Southeast Asia, United States
Institute of Peace (USIP) country director for Burma Jason Tower tells The Africa Report.
Tower is a co-author of the USIP report Transnational Crime in Southeast Asia: A
Growing Threat to Global Peace and Security published in May. The report finds that
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04/07/2024, 15:09 South Africa needs to play African leadership role to address Chinese mafia cyber-slave expansion - The Africa Report.com
Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos are the “epicenter” of the cyber-scamming industry in
Southeast Asia which emerged in part because of a ban on gambling in China.
Cyber scams have two kinds of victims. The first is the people who are trapped into
working in compounds as slaves under the pretence of legitimate employment. Most of
them are Chinese, and this has led to increased pressure from Chinese law enforcement
to crack down on the problem.
The second kind is people globally trying to start a relationship online and are tricked
into parting with their money. By the end of 2023, the USIP report estimates, Southeast
Asia scammers steal $64bn annually from victims worldwide.
The gangs are trying to traffic fewer Chinese victims to work in the compounds as a way
to ease the pressure from Chinese law enforcement, Tower says. He points to an
“established pattern” of beachheads being set up in new locations. In 2022, a mafia group
known as the Hongmen established a branch in Dubai which, Tower says, has been used
as a hub for recruiting Africans as cyber-scam slaves. The group, he adds, has also been
able to establish connections in Uganda.
Early in 2024, Tower says, the Hongmen established a presence in South Africa. Other
Chinese mafia groups have also established bridgeheads in Zambia as well as in Peru, he
adds. South Africa “has more capacity” than other countries and needs to play a
“leadership role” in raising the issue at the AU, Tower says. Awareness of the issue in
Africa, he says, is “extremely low”.
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of silence’
The danger, Tower adds, is that groups such as the Hongmen will start to establish high-
level connections in African countries, replicating the pattern witnessed in Southeast
Asia. Africans who speak English are especially valuable replacements for Chinese
cyber-slaves as they allow affluent people globally to be targeted. If compounds are
established in Africa, then Africans being enslaved in them “won’t even show up on the
radar of the Chinese police”, Tower says.
‘Broken Tooth’ sanctioned under Magnitsky legislation
The Hongmen were a Chinese secret society dating from the 1600s which supported
underground political movements. Today, the reference has been adopted as a cover for
mafia activity. Its leader Wan Kuok-koi, also known as “Broken Tooth,” was sanctioned
under Magnitsky legislation by the US Department of the Treasury in 2020.
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04/07/2024, 15:09 South Africa needs to play African leadership role to address Chinese mafia cyber-slave expansion - The Africa Report.com
Broken Tooth served 14 years in Macau in a purpose-built top-security prison for crimes
including attempted murder, weapons trafficking and money laundering. He was released
in 2012 and established the World Hongmen History and Culture
Association headquarters in Cambodia in 2018.
The association, according to the US Department of the Treasury, is a cover for the 14K
Triad, one of the world’s largest Chinese mafia organisations. The association has
managed to co-opt elite figures in Cambodia and Malaysia, the Treasury says, so
continuing a pattern of overseas Chinese actors trying to “paper over illegal criminal
activities by framing their actions in terms of China’s Belt and Road Initiative”.
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The Cambodian government is a close Chinese ally. But Tower says that cyber-scam
receipts of about $12.5bn flowing into Cambodia each year mean that “the Chinese
mafia has more influence than any Chinese state-owned enterprise” over the regime in
Cambodia. The result, Tower says, is that Cambodia supports the Chinese government
on a wide range of issues in return for reduced pressure from Beijing to clean up cyber-
slavery. It’s a trap he hopes that African countries will avoid falling into.
The South African Hongmen group, Tower says, is headed by Broken Tooth’s right-hand
man Zhaohui Bai, who fled Thailand after a police crackdown in 2023. Tower says it’s
unlikely that a country such as South Africa with strong institutions would become a
centre of cyber-slavery compounds.
The danger is that South Africa, because of its developed financial system, could be used
to launder the proceeds, similar to the role currently played by Thailand. Smaller
African countries which lack functioning institutions risk being targets for the
establishment of new cyber-slavery compounds, he adds.
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04/07/2024, 15:09 South Africa needs to play African leadership role to address Chinese mafia cyber-slave expansion - The Africa Report.com
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