We got chatting and “she” claimed to own a beauty salon in Hong Kong as well as a clothing factory in China. Their bio said “I like to travel, I like to make some sincere and friendly friends, not dating and love.” Their distance was of so many thousand kilometres away but sometimes changed to 20km, most likely because of the “Global” or “Passport” settings on Tinder, or just a straight up VPN. I matched with one person claiming to be from Hong Kong. Knowing all this, I headed into Tinder to seek out suspect profiles that were using photos of attractive East Asian women. What we have observed with the coronavirus is extraordinary and has renewed our belief in the importance of understanding the changing dynamics of organised crime and developing new responses to it.” “Although we have spent years studying organised crime issues, nothing lessens our surprise at the ability of criminals to adapt or the resilience of criminal markets and actors. In the 2021 book Criminal Contagion: How Mafias, Gangsters and Scammers Profit from a Pandemic, authors Tuesday Reitano and Mark Shaw comment on the ingenuity and adaptability of criminals: Browsing Reddit forums and YouTube comments, you’ll uncover first-hand testimony of money lost. Smitten by unconditional attention, the typically male targets are eventually encouraged to send money – often thousands of dollars – as part of bogus “guaranteed” investments. The scammer will “like” thousands of profiles with a view to developing multiple fictitious online relationships. The Pig-Butchering Scam aka Sha Zhu Pan (杀猪盘) Hong Kong is a commonly chosen destination as it is seen as a desirable, successful, civilised society. The fraudsters are usually based on the mainland but use a VPN to change the virtual location and artificially place the profile elsewhere. Enter Tinderįor unscrupulous cheats, the use of unverified online dating app profiles together with newfangled “opportunities” like Forex or cryptocurrency are a match made in heaven.Īs you may already know, Tinder is a hotbed for such nonsense because profiles are easily created using stolen photos. These examples are the tip of the iceberg.Īlthough it’s considered acceptable to dupe outsiders to acquire wealth and provide for the tight-knit family unit, this absolutely cannot be said for all Chinese people.ĭecent, law-abiding people are generally embarrassed as it paints their country in a terrible light. Similarly, police arrested 36 in connection with a fraudulent stock trading group set up in WeChat. The stuff of nightmares.ĭecades on, and still feeling the pressure to achieve financial security through outlandish enterprises, millions of people in China lost money as part of the OneCoin ponzi scheme for which 98 people were prosecuted in 2018. Things were particularly bad in the early 1960s we’re talking forced labour, executions and eventually, cannibalism. It is the worst type of short-termism born out of fear from a traumatic period in the nation’s history in which the government attempted to transform the agricultural economy into an industrial one. Those that experienced the notorious famine following China’s Great Leap Forward (spanning 3 years but with persistent consequences) tend to have a long-lasting mentality of grabbing and greed. Whether it’s counterfeit goods, forged banknotes, tea ceremonies, over-priced taxis, fake monks, pickpockets or pretty young ladies with hidden agendas befriending fresh-off-the-boat foreigners, it’s rare to not encounter some kind of deception. Having absorbed hundreds of hours of analysis, anecdote, praise and criticism of China, it’s obvious that scams are rife on the mainland, particularly in northern cities. I’ve never been to China, or Hong Kong, but have spent a couple of years on a crash course of armchair culture-download, mostly in the form of videos and podcasts. Ruthless individuals are using Tinder to lay honey traps with the intent of committing financial fraud. Fed up in lock down? Looking to make friends online? Need money? Beware.
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