China warns tourists about kidnappings in Thailand — South China Morning Post
The Chinese Embassy in Thailand urged citizens to plan their trips carefully and pay particular attention to transport safety following a series of kidnappings of Chinese nationals. As the South China Morning Post reports, the diplomatic mission separately warned online influencers and entertainers about fraudulent offers of highly paid work.
Advice for travellers
In an embassy statement released on Friday, citizens were advised to pay attention to transport arranged for them by other people, plan their routes, and use licensed carriers and legal operators. Chinese nationals were also urged not to accept free rides offered by acquaintances or strangers, to refuse sudden changes to meeting places or routes, and to inform relatives of their whereabouts.
This is not the first such warning: the embassy issued a similar alert in April. The new statement paid particular attention to cases in which entertainment industry figures and popular online content creators are lured to Thailand and subsequently transported to scam centres in Myanmar.
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Fake job schemes
According to Thai media, on October 10, a 30-year-old Thai national was detained in Tak province, which borders Myanmar. He is suspected of involvement in a network that allegedly lured three Chinese nationals with fake job vacancies and then transported them to the border area.
Transnational criminal networks operate scam compounds along the Thailand-Myanmar border. They use advertisements for highly paid jobs to draw foreigners into forced labour, human trafficking, and online fraud operations.
Among the high-profile cases is the story of Chinese actor Wang Xing, who was lured to Thailand in January by a fake offer to take part in filming and was later forcibly transported to a scam compound in Myanmar. Earlier this month, a 34-year-old Chinese photographer who arrived in Bangkok for a photo shoot disappeared; his family received a ransom demand and reported the kidnapping to Chinese and Thai authorities.
