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Getting a Job In Pig-Butchering

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Gary Warner

Crypto-Investment Scams

By now you’ve certainly heard about the link between human trafficking and pig butchering. Last year the Internet Crime Complaint Center received complaints about crypto-related investment frauds resulting in $3.3 Billion dollars in losses to U.S. citizens. It was the first year in recent history where Business Email Compromise losses were not the number one category of fraud.

We easily found evidence of the crypto-investment scam websites, both through their advertising on social media groups, Telegram channels, and WhatsApp groups, and also through Passive DNS analysis and reviews of newly registered domains.  You can see a partial list of the more than 25,000 domains we have linked to crypto-investment fraud by searching URLScan.io for the tag “cryptoscam.” At this time URLScan is showing a list of more than 4300 such domains.

Pig Butchering

But how are Crypto-Investment Scams linked to Pig Butchering?  I first wrote in August of 2022 relaying the story behind the origins of the term “pig butchering” or 杀猪盘 (Shā zhū pán) on my Cybercrime & Doing Time blog.   The term became widespread as Hao Zhendong  (郝振东) relayed his experiences of being lured to Myanmar and being enslaved and forced to work scamming people by brutal overseers who regularly beat and threatened their staff. Since that time many documentaries and investigative reports have been published on the story.  Two exceptional examples are the Al Jazeera 101 East documentary, “Forced to Scam: Cambodia’s Cyber Slaves” and the BBC World Service documentary “The Pig Butchering Romance Scam”. Both of the documentaries are brutal to watch, including videos of the scammer-slaves being beaten and shocked with electric prods.

Homeland Security Investigations and ACAMS released a special alert about pig butchering.  In that report they describe pig butchering as combining traditional romance and investment fraud with people trafficking and modern slavery.  They say that it is typically conducted by organized criminal gangs operating from SouthEast Asia in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.

There have been arrests of the scammer masters in the United States, Australia, and Malaysia .  But the more fascinating law enforcement actions are the rescues.  Huge numbers of enslaved scammers have been freed in multiple cases, including 2,700 in the Philippines.  The Los Angeles Times estimates that at least 100,000 victims are enslaved in these pig butchering operations, often being held captive in Casino resorts in Cambodia that fell into disuse after the COVID-19 pandemic bankrupted their original operations, which was also documented in VODEnglish’s story describing thousands of victims, forced to scam.

The Career Lure

But how are the victims lured to these jobs?  And what types of careers are offered by the scammers?   

One website that is clearly part of a Pig-Butchering recruitment project is Trionix Multitech.  The website describes how their main location is in Thailand and that they have 10,000 employees working in a 750- acre Tech Park in Mae Sot, Thailand. Employees are provided “free accommodation with 4 meals per day” and health checkups “every 2 months to keep our environment safe.” The website describes their unique crypto environment and the Tokens that they offer, showing that 45% of the tokens are allocated for public sales, 25% for private sales, and how the rest are split between the founders, advisors, and used for bounties and events for employees.

There are 8 categories listed as “Careers” and 6 categories listed as “IT Jobs.” While it may seem odd that one of those categories is “Model,” it makes sense based on my experience with Pig Butchering conversations.  While engaged in weeks’ long conversations with pig-butchering girls, I was treated multiple times each day to photos of my “friends.” Maria, who I met by chance when she accidentally texted the wrong number, was a beautiful blonde woman from Croatia. After only a couple messages she declared “I think you are very sincere. Your mature tone gives me a good feeling. I like to communicate with you so I want to know more about you.” Several of the photos she shared with me had buildings in the background that were clearly in Thailand based on the architecture.

When I asked about them, she explained that she and her father had visited Thailand recently and the picture was from their trip.  She started and ended each day by sending me a photograph of herself. When I shared those with others, several other people had received photos of the same individual.  This leads us to believe that the “models” described below provide regularly updated photographs that those involved in the romance scams use to make their relationships more credible.

Where is Trionix Multitech?

An animated Roadmap on the website provides directions on how to reach Techpark.

The animation implies that from Home, you will go to the Bangkok Airport, then to a Hotel, then you’ll be driven to Mae sot, and then to Tech Park.

The website lists their address as being “PH6F+XV Mae Sot Municipality, Mae Sot Subdistrict, Mae Sot District, Tak 63110” in Thailand. A Thai telephone number is linked to their WhatsApp button on the website: +66 634 026 873 and it indicates the same number can be used for Telegram. That telephone number is said to belong to “Madhu Sudhan Rao, Manager.”   A second Thai telephone number is given for “Mr Yan Lee, Head of the HR Department” — +66 630 257 424.

Several news articles have indicated the presence of “Cyber Slaves” in Mae Sot, and imply that the slave masters have the ability to easily transport their “employees” to Myanmar, which is 15 minutes away from the Mae Sot location. One of these articles was in Decripto.org on 03JUL2023.  The Decripto article includes a map showing pins for Mae Sot, the Tak Border crossing, the Myawaddy Border Patrol station, and Myawaddy, in Myanmar. The drive from Mae Sot to the Myanmar border would take approximately 15 minutes, per Google maps.

Another article entitled “A Criminal Cancer Spreads in Southeast Asia” is from the United States Institute of Peace, 26JUN2023.  In that article, the authors describe “at least 17 distinct crime zones” that offer “5 million square meters of criminal office space” along a 31-mile stretch of the Moei River which divides Myanmar from Thailand. The article points out that although Thai law enforcement has taken some enforcement actions, “construction continues around Mae Sot and new players are emerging along the Thai border.”

Selected Job Descriptions from Trionix Multitech

I’ve included the text from several of the job descriptions from the Careers section below, in case they would be more helpful as text for those researching these situations.

Human Resources:- HR

  • Salary Trial period 10000 RMB, 12,000 RMB after normalization
  • Working hours: 9 hours/day; 4 days off/month Recruit 2 people for monthly tasks, 5000/person (unlimited positions)
  • Off-task commission 8000/person (unlimited positions)
  • Task:
    • Responsible for recruiting talents to the company every month
    • Job requirements
    • It is necessary to know Chinese and Chinese typing, and it is good to know Chinese and English!
    • Strong sense of obedience, aged 20-39 years old;
    • Recruitment experience is required, and newbies are accepted
    • Conscientious and meticulous, strong sense of responsibility, strong execution, and obedience to arrangements;
    • Familiar with the use of computer chat software and various office software

Model

  • Salary: Basic salary $4000 usd, after regular employees $5000 usd
  • Job Responsibilities:
    • Have questions and answers / maintain customers warmly and thoughtfully.
    • Responsible for shooting company advertisements and other content when necessary.
    • Answer the customer’s video and call to chat with the customer when needed.
    • Improve the adhesion of customers through excellent service.
  • Job Requirements:
    • 20-30 years old Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or other place; Female only
    • Beautiful-looking and fluent in English.
    • can have good communication skills.
    • There is no need to work in the office, and the work is easy.

Marketing Specialist

  • Blockchain project
  • Salary base salary 12,000 RMB to 15,000 RMB cap
  • Commission 5-16 points, accurate resource promotion
  • Monthly salary comprehensive guaranteed minimum salary of 30,000-50,000 yuan 11 hours of working hours, 4 monthly breaks
  • If the performance is less than 20,000, 6% will be drawn, and if the performance is 5-10, 7% will be drawn
  • 9% for 10-20 performance, 11% for performance 20-30
  • 30-50 performance, 13%, 50% or more, 16%
  • job requirements
    • Age 20~35 years old; accept overtime / sensitive to data;
    • Excellent communication skills, good affinity, strong sense of service, positive and optimistic.

English promotion specialist:

  • Blockchain project
  • Basic salary of 1000 US dollars, regular employees 1500 US dollars
  • Commission 5-16 points, accurate resource promotion
  • Monthly salary comprehensive guaranteed minimum salary of 30,000-50,000 yuan
  • 11 hours of working hours, 4 monthly breaks
  • If the performance is less than 20,000, 6% will be drawn, and if the performance is 5-10, 7% will be drawn
  • 9% for 10-20 performance, 11% for performance 20-30
  • 30-50 performance, 13%, 50% or more, 16%
  • job requirements
    • Age 20~35 years old; accept overtime / sensitive to data;
    • Excellent communication skills, good affinity, strong sense of service, positive and optimistic.

Customer Service Specialist

  • Need to be familiar with Chinese and be able to use office software
  • Salary: Basic salary of 75,000 Thai baht, an Up to 100,000 baht plus high incentives the
  • Working hours: 12 hours, 4 monthly breaks, two shifts
  • Job Responsibilities:
    • Have questions and answers / maintain customers warmly and thoughtfully.
    • Online guide customers to achieve more target performance.
    • Maintain a good relationship with customers and keep splitting and opening new ones.
    • Improve the adhesion of customers through excellent service.
  • job requirements:
    • Must be able to speak Chinese and Chinese typing (1) 20-30 years old Chinese nationality or foreign Chinese, Except Fujian, Stan can be (2) Invint respects and does not reject personal religious beliefs, However, work cannot be affected by personal religious beliefs. (2) Fluent in Mandarin listening, reading and writing, typing > 30/min. (4) Have a good sense of service and active service ability. (5) Understand the sports and give priority to those with customer service/maintenance experience.
  • Contents of performance appraisal:
    • Attendance in the current month (whether there is lateness or absence, etc.)
    • Work attitude (whether there is laziness, burnout, etc.)
    • Basic ability (whether the work can be completed within a given time)
    • Business level (whether you can complete the work independently)
    • Superior evaluation (direct leader evaluation/supervisor evaluation)

Security Engineer (Network)

  • Salary: 9hrs per day Salary 2000$ 5000$ Depends on Experience
  • Working hours: 9 hours
  • Essential Skills
    • Extensive knowledge of Windows, Linux/Unix, Network
    • Knowledge of Firewall, IDS, Data Encryption, DLP etc.
    • Strong understanding of Active Directory, DNS, LDAP and Okta
    • Understanding of security and compliance frameworks such as CIS, NIST, ISO27001.
    • Previous experience of having used enterprise DLP products whilst installing configuring and managing these in the past.
    • Very strong understanding of AWS platform.
    • Proven experience with log management and/or SIEM technologies such as Splunk or Log Rhytm.
    • Knowledge of cloud and containers. Excellent understanding and experience with the following IT categories: Network Security, Vulnerability Management, Access Control, Device and Network Hardening methods.
    • Strong understanding of SOAR technologies and implementation.
    • Previous experience of deploying, configuring and managing Network Detection and Response (NDR) and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools within an enterprise environment.
    • Expertise in these domains; Security Architecture and Engineering, Communication and Network Security, Identity and Access Management (IAM), Security Assessment and Testing.
  • Basic Skills:
    • Experience of implementing, configuring and tuning security tools and technologies in a geographically dispersed environment.
    • Good communication and presentation skills.
    • Good written language skills.
  • Responsibilities:
    • Gain a thorough understanding of the security engineering culture and becoming embedded into the landscape of tools, technologies and solutions that form the backbone of delivery of security management.
    • Interacting with colleagues in different time zones, different level of expertise and understanding and in different cultures.
    • Provide expert support on the technical aspects of delivery of programs.
    • The deployment, configuration and management of new security tools, solutions and services.
    • Ensure various security tools, technologies and solutions are properly placed, configured and fine-tuned to provide the visibility and data that ensures this organisation can proactively identify, respond and mitigate threats and vulnerabilities across the global function.
    • Effectively liaise and collaborate with teams inside and outside of the respective department, including infrastructure, Networking, Digital Workplace, DevOps and engineering colleagues.
    • Continuously monitor and test the tools and solutions deployed, ensuring the goals of the security strategy and program are met.
    • Actively take part in project management life-cycles and demonstrate expertise when working on large security improvement programs

Full-stack / Back-End (Senior)

  • Being a professional software engineer
  • Salary: 9hrs per day Salary 3000$ 5000$ Depends on Experience
  • Working hours: 9 hours
  • Job Responsibilities:
    • You are proud to deliver high-quality code and maintain such quality through continuous testing, adopting best practices, reducing code complexity and incorporating critical feedback
    • You believe that collaboration with clear and consistent communication and excellent-documentation are key for successful product development
    • You are pragmatic and comfortable making short-term development decisions without losing sight of the product’s long-term vision and development road map Having been in the industry, you have:
      • Strong and demonstrable experience developing high-availability and concurrency analytic products
      • Solid knowledge of Java development frameworks: Dropwizard, Spring, and Hibernate
      • Good experience working with APIs and queuing management technology like RabbitMQ and/or Kafka
      • For full-stack , a good understanding and experience developing and designing intuitive and interactive platforms front-end and analytic tools
  • Our development team works through seven project-based cycles a year. Each cycle consistsof three two-weeks sprints documented and tracked in Atlassian (Jira and Confluence) andGitLab. New features and functions are continuously deployed throughout a project cyclewith the support of GitLab to automate and streamline the DevOps process. Ahead ofdeployment, new code requires passing our pre-commit reviews (quality, functionality andsecurity), which we use Deepsource, Codesens and SonarQube.
  • Our platform technology stack consists of
    • Containerised Java and microservices hosted on AWS
    • PostgresSQL, Redis, dbt and Metabase for data management and analytics
    • Python and LISP for the AI and ML modules
    • Kubernetes and Docker to manage and scale container deployments
    • CloudWatch and for performance monitoring and incident response
    • Intercom and Segment to streamline customer service and support
  • By joining our innovative and agile team, you will enjoy:
    • Great opportunity to work on innovative cyber security products & collaborate toward new improvements
    • Work alongside some of the industry’s leading experts & founders• Play an integral part of a young, exciting start-up growing and scaling up
    • Flexible working environment
    • Fully serviced offices: Belfast & London
    • State-of-the-art equipment and tools for the job
    • Access to rich development and personal growth learning resources and training
    • Competitive base salary, depending on the level of experience

Digital Specialist (Paid Ads, SEO/ASO)

  • Salary: 9hrs per day Salary 2000$ 5000$ Depends on Experience
  • Working hours: 9 hours
  • You’ll Have The Following Responsibilities
    • Support Global Paid Ads Strategy by increasing local relevance for campaigns by localizing and suggesting Ad content more culturally relevant
    • Develop Local narratives for performance marketing creatives and manage design briefs to meet local needs Monitor and report on performance using analytic tools like AppsFlyer, Google Analytics, Appannie, and Similarweb. Strong analytical skills are required
    • Work with the Performance Marketing central team in the local campaigns planning across creatives, audiences, optimization strategies, channels, and geographies to maximize ROAS
    • Meet ambitious growth KPIs Work with editorial and marketing teams to drive SEO in content creation and content marketing
    • Support SEO and Link Building with local publishers increases Binance site reputation
    • Closely collaborate with the CRM & Lifecycle team to improve the localization for email marketing and automation in the region
    • Collaborate with the affiliate marketing team in obtaining local resources and partners to develop the program locally
  • Responsibilities:
    • 3-4 years of relevant paid social marketing experience, preferably directly managing digital marketing campaigns for a fintech or mobile app company
    • Solid understanding of performance marketing, conversion, analytics and online customer acquisition
    • Up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in SEO and SEM
    • Email marketing previous experience is a plus
    • Experience with SEO industry programs, such as Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics
    • Proven SEM experience managing PPC campaigns across Google, Yahoo etc Must have a strong interest and knowledge in the crypto/blockchain/technology space
    • University degree relating to Business, Marketing, Statistics, or Economics is plus
    • Must be a fluent English speaker • Fluent Chinese will be a strong plus
  • Conditions:
    • Competitive salary
    • Flexible working conditions
    • Flat organization
    • Great Locations with a highly talented and international colleagues
    • Be a part of the exciting future of the crypto-currency revolution and work on the world’s no.1 crypto-currency exchange!