The pig is fattened before it is slaughtered. That grim logic underlies the scam centres spread across the Golden Triangle and explains how Rachel Yoong became ensnared.
She encountered a Facebook advertisement promising a casino job in Yangon, a salary that far exceeded what she was earning at the time. Intrigued, she applied and was subsequently transported to Kokang, a remote and effectively lawless region in northern Myanmar. In Kokang she was compelled to operate online scams.
Her experience represents a single data point in a larger surge documented by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Criminal organisations have industrialised their recruitment, using social media ads as bait to draw people into compounds guarded by armed personnel.
Inside these facilities, workers face brutal beatings if they fail to meet daily quotas for extorting money from strangers. The fraudulent scheme employed is known as pig‑butchering, a deliberately crude term that describes the process of fattening a target with false romantic or investment promises before slaughtering their savings. Scammers follow scripted conversations, building trust over days or weeks before convincing victims to transfer funds to bogus accounts.
The proceeds are then laundered through casinos, real estate ventures and cryptocurrency. The scale of the problem is staggering.
The Global Anti‑Scam Alliance released estimates in 2023, though those figures are not part of the report on Rachel Yoong. The document makes clear that the issue is not a handful of isolated cases but a regional crisis. The UNODC has linked the increase to economic desperation and geopolitical instability, noting that individuals bored with their routines and attracted by salaries that dwarf their current earnings become the raw material for this industry.
Kokang’s remoteness and lack of effective governance make it an attractive base for syndicates. Criminal networks have exploited the vacuum, constructing compounds equipped with armed guards and running them with the efficiency of a call centre.
The crucial difference is that the workforce consists of trafficked persons and the product is human misery.
