(NewsNation) — There is a multibillion-dollar cyberfraud industry powered by human trafficking, forced labor and torture, according to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal.
In a criminal empire, Chinese gangsters traffic people from around the world and force them to scam strangers online. They are often sent to remote and lawless parts of Southeast Asia, the newspaper reported.
People are forced to commit scams commonly known as “pig butchering,” so named because of the way scammers fatten up their victims by gaining their trust before they take their money and cut them loose.
The United Nations says hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked to Cambodia and Myanmar and are threatened or tortured into committing illegal acts, something the U.N. calls “forced criminality.” Trafficking people for this purpose has been documented in dozens of countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa and even the United States.
Read the full investigation from the Wall Street Journal.