‘We need to prey on people’s emotions’: A Malaysian’s 10-month ordeal in a Myanmar scam centre

JOHOR BAHRU – Mr Gan Jiea Jie was trained to type faster and use artificial intelligence (AI) to create profiles or videos.

The 19-year-old was also taught ways to chat up random people on social media and gain their trust.

In short, he was trained to become a scammer.

Mr Gan’s unsavoury “career” began in February 2024 when he was lured by a job offer that would supposedly pay him RM80,000 (S$24,400) for just one week of helping to transport gold from a dealer in Thailand to gold shops in Malaysia.

He ended up becoming a victim of human trafficking, in which he was smuggled from Thailand to Myanmar, where he was given intensive training for a month on how to scam people.

During his 10 months in Myanmar, Mr Gan was taught how to improve his typing skills, chat with strangers online, and earn their trust by talking about their favourite things, families, friends and their hopes for the future.

“We try to get the person isolated from his loved ones, so he would not talk about it to his friends or family members until we manage to squeeze as much money as possible from him,” he said.

Mr Gan was given a manual on how to handle various situations and ways to impersonate a bank officer or law enforcement official to scare his victims.

“We need to prey on people’s emotions. A good way is to put fear in them about losing all their hard-earned money or going to prison.”

Mr Gan said the scam centres were well organised and led by foreigners who run them like corporate offices, with a chief executive officer, along with general managers, supervisors and team leaders.

These scam centres possessed personal details, including addresses and identity card numbers, of countless people.

They also had access to dozens of mule accounts and would immediately transfer out the money from the local currency to US dollars, he said.

Mule accounts are opened by an individual who gives control of the bank account, including access to online banking or an ATM card, to a syndicate, which then pays the account holder between RM500 and RM1,000 each month.

Mr Gan said the scammers would also go to dating applications to prey on their targets, using AI to create fake profiles or videos with officers in uniforms to convince their victims during live video calls.

“We also produce fake court documents or letters to freeze people’s accounts for being involved in money laundering,” he said, adding that this was to intimidate their victims, who were usually elderly people.

He explained that their job involved four “layers”.

Syndicate members played different roles: getting to know their target, impersonating an official, transferring the money to mule accounts, and finally, persuading the victim to part with even more money.

Those carrying out investment scams would ask the victim to use their company platform to buy cryptocurrency and convince the person to invest more to gain lucrative returns.

Mr Gan said he once witnessed how a foreign national lost up to millions of dollars to the syndicate.

“The scammer who achieved the feat was given a huge bonus, an immediate pay rise, booze, and even women,” he said.

During his 10 months in captivity, Mr Gan said he had to work up to 18 hours a day.

He was beaten up, handcuffed and zapped with a taser for not hitting his monthly quota, he said, showing the many bruises on his back.

His “KPI” (key performance indicator) was to reach out to about 30 people each month.

Every day, he was supposed to send out messages to them, saying: “Good morning. How are you today?”

And when the target replies “I’m good”, Mr Gan was required to get them to respond up to 100 words daily.

He said the bosses found him useless because he could not scam anyone despite sending out calls and messages daily.

“I was bad at scamming people. I always got punished. They sold me at least three times to different call centre syndicates,” Mr Gan said.

“They also said I needed to pay US$50,000 (S$64,300) if I wanted to return home. Otherwise, I would have to keep working for them to settle this amount.”

To his horror, the crime syndicates would use social media and messaging platforms such as Telegram to post news about bounties on those who tried to escape.

Mr Gan said all the scam centres were located in sprawling complexes guarded by armed personnel in Kayin, Myanmar.

His chance for freedom came in February when Thailand cut off electricity, internet access and fuel supplies to five border areas in Myanmar.

Mr Gan’s bosses gave him the option to relocate to another scam centre in Cambodia. From there, he fled one morning when he was out buying breakfast.

Since his return to Johor in February, he has been seeking shelter with a social welfare group to avoid the loan sharks from whom he had borrowed money before leaving for Thailand in search of a “lucrative job”.

He is thankful to social worker Joyce Hwang Qi Hui, whom he addressed as his “big sister”, for raising RM2,000 to fund his return to Malaysia.

The Malaysian embassy, especially a staff member named Buhari, other well-wishers and a church had been instrumental in getting his freedom, too, Mr Gan said.

Now, he is determined to repair ties with his family, who had disowned him. He has three younger siblings aged nine to 13.

Mr Gan admitted to being naughty in his early years.

“I had so many bad habits. I even joined a gang. I would skip school,” he recalled.

“Now, I want to try to right all the wrongs in my life. I hope to complete my Form Five as I did not go for the examinations.

“I regret all my wrong decisions, but I hope to do something useful with my life from now on.” THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK