Source: Visual China
Author 丨 Sun Yu
Editor 丨 Kang Xiao
Produced by 丨Shenwang Tencent News Xiaoman Studio
"The 'Blood Slave' incident is just the tip of the iceberg." Kim Young-cheol, a person familiar with the gaming industry in Southeast Asia, told the Deep Web. According to its introduction, there is a very complete industrial chain along the southwest line of China, "using high salaries as bait, luring and even forcing domestic migrant workers to go to Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries to engage in online gambling or telecommunications fraud and other activities, and after squeezing out the last bit of value, they will also ask domestic families to redeem themselves at high prices or simply sell blood and organs." ”
In Kim Young-zhe's view, the overall situation in the past two years may become worse. "Because of the epidemic, most Of the Chinese migrant workers in Cambodia are stowaways or kidnapped like Li Yaming." Data show that nearly 30% of stowaways are engaged in online gambling, and about 70% of the other are engaged in telecommunications fraud.
On February 14, an article on "selling blood in captivity" was widely circulated on the Internet, which said, "A Jiangsu man named Li Yaming (pseudonym), who was sold abroad, was drawn in captivity, his whole body was puffy and his needle eyes were dense; the head nurse who had worked for more than 30 years could not find blood vessels, and the blood drawn out was in a state of blood and water."
According to upstream news reports, Li Yaming's real name in the article, Li Yayuanlun, was sent to the China-Cambodia First Hospital in Phnom Penh for treatment on February 12 this year. Zhu Minxue, the president of the hospital, said in the report, "Xiao Li was mainly drained of blood and was on the verge of death. Li Yayuanlun said in the report that he fled without the attention of the people supervised by the online fraud gang, who had previously done small business in China, worked as a security guard in many institutions, grew up in the welfare dean, and currently had no relatives at home.
With the further development of the situation, public opinion blamed the recruitment business under the information release platform 58 Tongcheng. The Chinese Embassy in Cambodia claimed that a Chinese man surnamed Li was coerced into smuggling to Cambodia by a criminal gang because of his credulity in false recruitment advertisements on the same city's internet, and was later illegally detained by the online gambling and telecommunications fraud gang in Chinatown, Sihanoukville, Cambodia, and was repeatedly pumped with large doses of blood, and his life was in danger.
According to an interview with Li Yayuanlun by the China Youth Daily, in May last year, Li saw a Guangxi nightclub recruiting security guards in the 58 city, "according to the recruitment information to go to Chongzuo City, Guangxi Province for an interview, and then was driven to Pingxiang City, Guangxi Province by people who claimed to be nightclub personnel (Note: Bordering Vietnam, about 80 kilometers away from Chongzuo), and was tied up from China." ”
58 Tongcheng immediately responded that it had communicated to the relevant departments, the case was under continuous investigation, and it had not yet been determined that the victim had seen the recruitment information in 58 Tongcheng, nor had it found the recruitment information released by the corresponding enterprise.
However, in Jin Yingzhe's view, although the link has been very mature, whether the "blood" case caused by 58.com is still very important, "In the past, most people were deceived by the so-called relatives, friends, and fellow villagers engaged in this industry, and even some people themselves were engaged in related industries in China." In recent years, with the impact of the epidemic, the supervision has achieved certain results. Now, if online recruitment is introduced, it may mean that the victim base will further expand. ”
How to cut off this black hand reaching out to job seekers, should online recruitment sites take more responsibility? Can they take on more responsibility? Xue Jun, deputy dean of Peking University Law School, told DeepNet, "The platform has responsibility, but it cannot be infinitely attributed to the platform, and the platform responsibility should have a reasonable boundary." Some insiders believe that the platform has an unshirkable responsibility for prior review, but it is also difficult to further supervise the follow-up corporate behavior.
From security guards to blood slaves
According to several media reports that came into contact with Li Yayuanlun, he used to work as a security guard in Beijing, earning 3,000 yuan a month, "by two Chinese in camouflage uniforms, escorted from Pingxiang across the border to Ho Chi Minh City, and less than a week later took a small wooden boat to Cambodia one night." ”
In the report of the China Youth Daily, Li Yayuanlun said that there was another person who was abducted and sold together, "before leaving, we were given a drink with ecstasy, and then woke up in Ho Chi Minh City." The guards were replaced by four tattooed men, and the people I had been sent out of the country with me were gone. ”
Li Yayuanlun, who refused to engage in phone fraud, was transferred three times, "They asked me to cheat Chinese, and I said that even if I killed, I would not do this for you." ”
In this regard, Zhao Chuan, a Chinese who has been engaged in tour guide-related work in Cambodia for many years, introduced to the "Deep Net" that this is the usual means of Cambodian internet investment (fraud) companies, "First of all, let you deceive your friends and family, as long as you do something illegal, it will threaten you to continue to do it; there are also a small number of people like Li who carry to the end, and finally sell blood and organs, in short, to earn back the money spent from you." ”
Compared with most people who had the same experience, Li Yayuanlun was lucky, because he was a rare Rh-negative type O blood, which was used as a humanoid blood bag. In half a year, Li Yayuanlun was drawn seven times, 350 to 700 milliliters each time, and the last time he drew blood, because he could not find a vein, he "stuck the needle above his eyebrows and drew it." ”
Zhao Chuan introduced to the "Deep Web" that the vast majority of people who have suffered such encounters actually died quickly, "Reading the report should be because his blood type is relatively rare, so he wants to wait and sell organs." In an interview with "Cambodia Today", Li Yayuanlun once recalled that the people who were drawn with him were once threatened to sell their organs, and the next day the people disappeared.
More fortunately, Li Yayuanlun was eventually rescued with the help of well-wishers. When he entered the First Hospital of China and Cambodia, due to severe ischemia, his whole body was puffy and close to a state of shock.
As I said at the beginning of this article, this is just the tip of the iceberg. In April last year, the website of the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia published the news that the Cambodian police successfully rescued two Chinese citizens who had been illegally detained and arrested a number of Chinese suspects. According to the rescuees, they credulously believed in so-called "high-paying" job advertisements and joined an illegal online gambling group in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, working under surveillance all day long. After they filed a resignation request, the online gambling group illegally detained them and demanded that they pay high "compensation".
According to Zhao Chuan, the so-called compensation here is "most of the time it is forced to sell blood and organs, and there is a mature underground market here." ”
Worst of all, many people go from being scammers to being scammers. "The reason why it is difficult to cure is that they can make money, and many rich people in Cambodia often engage in fraudulent activities." Zhao Chuan has a friend who is the manager of the relevant company, "He once told me that most of his personnel voluntarily stayed in the company, and they would not run if they had income." According to media reports, ordinary employees who are familiar with fraud and online gambling business can earn more than 10,000 yuan or even tens of thousands of yuan per month.
It's Westport again
Another point of attention is that Westport, which has previously gained fame in China, has once again entered the public eye.
Westport, also known as Sihanoukville, is a deep-water port about 230 kilometers southwest of the Cambodian capital. It is not only a special economic zone in Cambodia, but also the largest foreign trade center.
This scenic port city rose in 2014, when Thailand, the Philippines and other countries began to crack down on domestic gambling, and Cambodia rapidly expanded its gambling industry in Westport, issuing a large number of online and offline licenses and opening a series of tax exemption and tax reduction policies.
The data shows that Cambodia issued 52 casino licenses in 2018 alone. As of 2019, there are 193 registered legal casinos in Cambodia, of which 91 are in Westport. Xigang residential buildings, office buildings, hotels, there are large and small online gambling websites, the service object is the domestic gamblers.
In almost all the propaganda at that time, Westport was called the next Shenzhen. Due to the existence of online gambling sites, many young people in China have been recruited from various recruitment channels in the name of engaging in the Internet industry.
At this stage, online recruitment websites have played an extremely disgraceful role, "At that time, as long as the work place is Cambodia, the work content is programmers or typists or online customer service, and the specific industry is page games or software development, it can definitely be a recruitment to the gambling site." Xiao Rufan, a recruitment industry insider, told Shenzhennet, "But since the other party is basically a compliance company, we will not care." ”
"High salary, air tickets, food and accommodation, simple work content." These slogans have attracted countless young people, and the data shows that from 2016 to 2019, more than 500,000 Chinese came to Westport for employment.
There is no gold everywhere, these young people have just set foot on the land of Westport, they were confiscated by the online gambling company mobile phones and passports, "if you can't complete the task, you have to pay the company." Zhao Chuan introduced "Deep Web" in this way.
In 2019, Cambodia began to eliminate gambling and other related illegal industries, and arrested a large number of practitioners engaged in illegal gambling. Jin Yingzhe introduced to the "Deep Web" that if you pay attention to this industry in 2019, you can find that many online gambling sites have become registered in the Philippines.
Westport Boom ended in 2020, and on January 1 of that year, Cambodia's order to stop approving and issuing various online gambling business licenses operating in the country came into effect, and those gambling companies that had already obtained permission had to cease operations immediately after their licenses expired. Subsequently, nearly 100 gambling companies closed their doors, more than 7,000 people lost their jobs at home, and as many as 450,000 Chinese evacuated Cambodia urgently.
But when legitimate industries are almost uprooted, illegal gray and black industries are even more rampant. As the "Blood Slave" incident shows, high-paying lures have gone too far into direct kidnapping. In a report by Southern Weekend, Chen Baorong, captain of the China-Cambodia Volunteer Team, a non-governmental volunteer organization, said that before the arrival of the new crown epidemic, the ransom for kidnapping a person needed $3,000, and now it has risen to $10,000. ”
According to Cambodia's Ministry of The Interior, in the first half of 2021 alone, the country cracked down on 198 cases of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, up from 63 in the same period in 2020.
The dilemma of information dissemination remains to be solved
On the eve of the Spring Festival this year, 58.com announced that it would rename its "catch-up network" to "catch-up direct recruitment" and reshape it to focus on the recruitment market. After the Spring Festival, the data released by the catch-up direct recruitment shows that the number of newly registered users has increased by 5 times compared with before the Spring Festival, and it is expected to reach one million DAUs within half a year. According to the person in charge of relevant products related to the recruitment and direct recruitment of 58.
At present, it has not been finally confirmed whether the KTV applied for by the victim Li Yayuanlun was once posted on the recruitment platform of 58.com. But unfortunately, even if it is confirmed that Li Yayuanlun's recruitment information comes from 58.com, the platform may not have relevant responsibilities from a legal point of view. Xue Jun told the "Deep Net" that the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has relevant regulations, "The operation of the recruitment platform should review the basic information of the enterprise, such as whether it is a regular enterprise and whether there is a corresponding qualification." ”
In Xue Jun's view, if the company has violations after the employee is hired, the recruitment platform party has no responsibility, "there should be some verification work, or there should be some disclosure channels for the recruits, and if there are more complaints, they should be removed or transferred to the relevant departments, which is social responsibility." ”
A number of industry insiders told "Deep Web" that although the "blood slave" incident is an extreme case and has not been conclusively determined whether it is related to 58, fake recruitment similar to "hanging sheep's head to sell dog meat" is not uncommon in 58 city. In recent years, complaints and lawsuits about 58 same city information fraud have been continuous: the data shows that the black cat complaints about 58 same city information exceed 10,000, and the judgment document network 58 same city fraud judgment cases more than 2600.
Pan Qiong, a practitioner familiar with the recruitment process of 58.com, introduced to the "Deep Web" that professional recruitment websites have strengthened the review of recruitment data, but the recruitment section of 58.com is still an information release mode, "Relatively speaking, the audit is relatively loose, only when the company needs a lot of formal recruitment, the platform will review the qualifications." But Pan Qiong also stressed that "such enterprises often go to more formal platforms, and some 'small and micro' enterprises that are not so formal will be released on the 58 platform." ”
Pan Qiong also said that if the account only does information release, the company basically does not need to carry out qualification review, "even if it is reported, it does not matter, just like other social platforms, you can register an account again." ”
Xiao Rufan introduced to the "Deep Net" that at present, most of the domestic online recruitment platforms are still sales-oriented, and the resumes sent from C-end job seekers are "sold" to B-end customers after screening, "The recruitment industry has two big peak seasons, one is the spring recruitment after the Spring Festival, one is the graduation season in May and June every year, and more than 80% of the platform income will be obtained through various paid tools at these two nodes." ”
Li Yayuanlun was trafficked to Cambodia at the end of May last year, one of the two most active nodes in the recruitment industry.
Xiao Rufan further told the "Deep Web" that at present, the vast majority of professional recruitment websites do not have the ability to identify the qualifications of the country's various and complex enterprises, not to mention the "part-time players" such as 58 Tongcheng, "The last level of review often comes from the local sales staff of the declaring enterprise, but these sales personnel are most concerned about advertising revenue, and they often turn a blind eye to the qualification review." ”
But Xiao Rufan also expressed the distress of the recruitment industry, "If the audit obligation has been fulfilled, it is difficult to make the recruitment platform take responsibility for the private behavior of the enterprise." In Xue Jun's view, the "blood slave" case is a very extreme case, and it is difficult to say that it is reasonable to blame the platform, "because the platform cannot know that such an act of kidnapping occurs later, and job seekers still have to do a good job of self-protection and prevention." ”
In fact, in addition to recruitment platforms, such messages abound on Zhihu, Weibo, and Baidu Tieba. Jin Yingzhe introduced to the "Deep Web" that many of the recruitment content of the scammers is actually just to screen out those who have no social experience or only want to make money, "High-paid recruitment in border cities is not credible, overseas free play is not credible, friends who have not been in contact for a long time are not credible to invite to go abroad, and it is important to protect themselves." ”
Xue Jun also told the "Deep Web" that job seekers should still pay attention to identification, "a comprehensive understanding of the situation of the enterprise, to avoid being deceived, to avoid personal harm, and to pay attention to protecting their personal and property safety." ”
(At the request of the interviewee, Jin Yingzhe, Zhao Chuan, Pan Qiong, xiao Rufan are pseudonyms)
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