Recently, the problem of fraud in northern Myanmar has attracted the attention of the people of the whole country, and related topics are constantly rushing to the hot search, under such a high-intensity fraud news and anti-fraud knowledge "bombardment", the public's awareness of fraud can be said to be full, so that to the point that some netizens "talk about northern Myanmar will change color".
However, at present, the means to combat fraud groups in northern Myanmar are still limited, and although they have actively cracked down with the local government in Myanmar, it is almost impossible to completely eradicate overseas fraud groups in terms of the complexity and practical difficulty of cross-border crackdowns.
Of course, the "witty" netizens also offered their suggestions, asking whether physical means such as disconnecting the network and power can be used to combat the fraud group in northern Myanmar?
Power off is not desirable
The use of power cuts to combat telecom fraud groups in northern Myanmar sounds outrageous at first, but there is a certain practical basis behind it.
As early as around June this year, there were media reports that the Thai government had forcibly cut off the power supply in Myawaddy Town on the Thai-Myanmar border, and even "focused on" the notorious local fraud park - KK Park and its surrounding areas, causing the lives of nearby residents to be affected for a while.
As for the specific reasons for the power outage, there are different opinions, one is that the power supply contract of the Thai and Myanmar government expired, and the Myanmar government refused to renew the contract; Another theory is that Thailand and Myanmar are doing so to crack down on telecommunications fraud in Myawaddy Town, a town on the border with Myanmar, where the Thai Electricity Authority cut off power at the behest of the Myanmar government.
▲Satellite image of KK Park, where fraud, gambling, and human trafficking criminal organizations are concentrated
Regardless of the reason for the power outage, this power outage reflects the serious power shortage faced by Myanmar, and the entire country's power supply, especially the remote border areas, is highly dependent on foreign countries.
According to statistics, by the end of 2020, only 50% of the country's households had electricity supply, but more than 27,000 villages were still not electrified.
The single power structure is a major reason for the lack of power supply, and the entire power structure of Myanmar can be said to be basically dominated by hydropower.
At the end of 2021, Myanmar had 83 power plants, of which 62 were hydroelectric and 20 gas-fired but only one coal-fired power plant.
Although hydropower is mainly a green, healthy and low-cost project, this deformed structure that relies heavily on hydropower power will be devastating to the stability of electricity supply throughout Myanmar when water is scarce in the summer dry season.
In contrast, thermal power generation can quickly increase power generation, and although Myanmar is extremely rich in natural gas reserves, why not build more thermal power stations?
It's not that the Myanmar government doesn't want to, it's that it can't.
During the military junta, Myanmar's ruling government signed a large number of "loser" contracts with other countries, and the existing natural gas was mainly used for export, and the new gas fields could not be put into production until several years later.
Coal-fired power generation was once strongly resisted by the public because of environmental pollution, and dozens of coal mining projects launched by successive Myanmar governments were forced to stop due to public pressure.
▲People in Myanmar protest against coal-fired power generation
Coupled with the aging of transmission and distribution circuits, as well as the increase in urban industrial electricity demand and other factors, power outages and power rationing have become the norm in the country.
Even Yangon, which claims to be Myanmar's largest city, is plunged into massive power outages almost every once in a while.
This has also led to the fact that every household in Myanmar has long been accustomed to power outages, basically every family will have its own generator, and the industrial park will provide its own generator set to prevent no electricity available in the event of a power outage.
▲Yangon traffic police use a generator to electrify traffic lights
This is true in Yangon, not to mention the remote towns and mountain villages bordering neighboring countries.
It is in the context of power shortage that in order to ensure the power supply in these remote areas, Myanmar is often connected to the cross-border power grids of neighboring countries such as China and Thailand, and some northern Myanmar regions, including Wa State, rely heavily on cross-border power transmission in Yunnan.
Therefore, there is also the theory of using power cuts to combat the Myanmar North Electric Fraud Group, but it is obvious that the so-called power cuts are impractical.
On the one hand, as mentioned before, basically Myanmar fraud parks basically have their own generator sets, if the power is cut off for a short time, the electric fraud organization can still use the generator power supply to engage in fraud and criminal activities, and it is impossible to effectively combat it.
In fact, after the Thai Electricity Authority cut off the power of the KK fraud park, it did not have much impact on the normal operation of the KK park, and the park was still brightly lit, and the surrounding people were the first to suffer.
If a large-scale and prolonged power outage is adopted, it will inevitably have a serious impact on the lives of ordinary people in Myanmar and damage the trust and cooperation between the two countries, which is obviously not desirable.
▲There are many China-Myanmar power cooperation projects, which have brought huge benefits to the mainland
The disconnection is even more nonsense
In addition to some netizens proposing power cuts, some netizens proposed to use network cuts to combat electricity fraud in northern Myanmar, coordinate Myanmar and Thailand, "cut off optical fibers in northern Myanmar" and "make northern Myanmar an information island".
The reason for coming up with such a bizarre countermeasure is probably also due to the special conditions for breeding telecommunications fraud and criminal activities in northern Myanmar.
As a multi-ethnic country, since Myanmar's independence, the relatively tense relationship between the central government and the armed forces in ethnic minority areas has continued to this day.
Under the protection of local armed forces, northern Myanmar has become an active gray production area mixed with fish and dragons. Although China has repeatedly joined hands with the Myanmar government to combat wire fraud crimes, paying local armed forces "protection fees", China wire fraud groups have been able to escape sanctions many times.
In addition, Myanmar's Wa State and Kokang cities directly border the mainland's Yunnan province, and the China-Myanmar border is 2,000 kilometers long, providing security and convenience for fraud gang members to travel between the two places.
For historical reasons, the infrastructure of these cities is inseparable from China's figure, and when you come to these cities from China, you will not think that you have gone abroad.
Locals speak Chinese, use RMB, and use WeChat Alipay to trade locally, and fraudsters smuggled here can find a sense of "home" here.
▲ Chinese elements in Wa State can be seen everywhere
More importantly, because it borders China, it can even receive signals from mobile, telecom and other operators, which can be said to provide great convenience for the fraud business of wire fraud groups.
This is why, after China adopted a strict crackdown on domestic fraud crimes, northern Myanmar has become the preferred place for wire fraud gangs to go into exile.
It is precisely because the telefraud group Northern Myanmar can also use the mobile phone number of Mobile Unicom Telecom to commit fraud crimes, which is why there are rumors of the so-called "crackdown on telefraud in northern Myanmar by disconnecting the network".
But unfortunately, this means is just a one-sided fantasy of netizens.
First of all, cutting off the optical fiber in northern Myanmar, uprooting the local communication base station, and paralyzing the local communication network will seriously interfere with the normal life of tens of thousands of ordinary residents in northern Myanmar, which not only seriously violates the humanitarian spirit, but also deviates from the original intention of cracking down on wire fraud groups.
As for allowing operators to lock the fraudulent number in advance and block the number before the fraudulent call is dialed out, it is also extremely difficult at the practical level.
Although scam groups often use scam phone cards from the three major operators, before committing a fraud crime, the possibility of locking the phone number and determining the phone number as a scam gang fraud tool is almost zero for the operator.
It also faces the risk of mistakenly locking the ordinary number of domestic users as a fraudulent number.
Under normal circumstances, it is often only after the fraud has been initiated, and the police and operators can mark the number and then ban the number after the victim reports to the police.
For fraud organizations in the fraud park, phone numbers are often regarded as disposable consumables, and they generally successfully defraud a person, and the mobile phone card that is fraudulently will be invalid and no longer used.
Where did such a huge number of fraudulent phone numbers come from?
Although the vast majority of mobile phone cards require real-name registration, there are still a large number of bearer or false mobile phone cards on the market, some of which come from the user's real-name to the operator to sell the phone card in order to greedy for small profits after opening the card, and some use the stolen real-name information for registration.
A large number of unnamed and false telephone numbers are collected through illegal channels through upstream number merchants and then sold to fraud groups.
Some time ago, the "Today's Statement" column revealed a "black and gray industry" case in the secret country, the public security organs arrested 23 operators who colluded with the fraud syndicate, and the police recovered 80 million mobile phone number data from the computers seized by the suspects.
▲Screenshot of the "Today's Statement" column
By signing a false number pool service contract, the operator deceives the operator's internal review, builds a server in the operator's computer room, illegally invades the operator's SMS system, and provides the interface to downstream WeChat registrars for use.
Then, the operator number pool extracts empty number resources, and uses a large number of empty numbers to receive and send SMS verification codes.
After the case was exposed, it had a great impact, and even triggered false rumors about "Jilin Telecom providing 80 million numbers to northern Myanmar fraud".
From this case, it can also be seen that behind the criminal activities of the wire fraud group, there is a complete gray industry chain that sells mobile phone numbers, WeChat accounts and other fraudulent accounts, and the degree of modernization is quite high.
▲Jilin Telecom official number refutes rumors
The development of information technology has made the virtual phone number technology constantly renewed, which has increased the difficulty of tracking fraudulent calls.
Among the tools of the fraud syndicate is GOIP, a virtual dialing device that converts traditional telephone signals into network signals, and fraudsters can make fraudulent calls through remote control.
In other words, through this device, criminals can access domestic communication networks abroad, make fraudulent calls, and avoid police follow-up calls.
▲ GOIP equipment seized by the police
Therefore, if you lock the fraud number by tracing the name of the card owner according to some netizens, you will eventually find that either the number is not yet real, or it may just be an ordinary person who does not know.
All in all, the complete elimination of telecom fraud syndicates in northern Myanmar is far from being achieved by simple and extreme means such as power and network outages.
After clearing out a group of telefraud groups in northern Myanmar, who can guarantee that another group of overseas wire fraud groups will not rise again?
As long as the interests behind wire fraud exist, wire fraud criminal activities will never stop.
Perhaps, what can be done is to discover a fraud crime, eliminate it at the same time, try to do a good job in the popularization of anti-fraud technology and knowledge, and reduce the property losses of the people.