Netflix’s original Mandarin suspense series “The Resurrected” has dominated the platform’s daily top ten rankings since its October release. The show follows Zhang Shikai, leader of a fraud syndicate, who lures teenagers into becoming accomplices in scams, punishing those who fail to meet targets with torture or even death. Reality, however, is far grimmer: scam camps in Cambodia and Myanmar reportedly operate with even more brutality than depicted in the series.
Set in the fictional city of “Banka,” The Resurrected depicts Zhang Shikai, played by Fu Mengbo, running a scam syndicate that lures teenagers with promises of free travel to Southeast Asia. Victims are imprisoned in scam camps and forced to commit fraud against family, friends, and the elderly. Those who fail to hit performance targets are deprived of food, subjected to sexual abuse, torture, or even killed.
In recent years, Taiwan has seen a rise in scams offering “high-paying overseas jobs,” luring people to Cambodia and other countries where they are forced into telecom fraud. Similar cases have surged in South Korea, with around 200,000 people currently trapped in Cambodian scam camps, including thousands of South Koreans, according to recent security reports.
Victims, known as “human pigs,” often must pay tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands in ransom to escape. Those who resist face beatings, forced exercises, solitary confinement, and other forms of abuse.
Taiwanese fire dancer Xie Yuepeng, 27, was deceived into a scam camp in Myanmar late last year. He recalled being chained in a dark room for five days without sleep, beaten on his abdomen, chest, head, and face, and forced to perform heavy labor, all while enduring constant humiliation.
Other victims from South Korea reported being tricked into scam camps while traveling. When they failed to pay ransoms, they were physically abused with bottles and ashtrays, forced into painful positions, or held in confinement. Some even witnessed individuals being killed by security personnel for resisting the syndicate.
China’s northern Myanmar “Four Great Families” crime syndicates similarly operate scam camps to conduct online fraud, run casinos, traffic drugs, and organize prostitution, amassing enormous profits. These groups rely on militias or local border forces to control camps with violence, and in some cases, gunfire during the transfer of victims has resulted in multiple deaths.
