After the fraud park out of control, Musk finally didn't put on the "climbing head turtle", to the Chinese side's assignment is still in place.
The case of the Northern Burmese electric fraud park has been wiped out before, and the technology was considered to be the last blocking line of defense.
The star chain terminals are soon to climb the roof of the park, even in the deep old forest can be connected to the high-speed network, before that blocking method would not be useful.
On October 21, SpaceX's vice president of business Lauren Dreyer said on social platforms,The company has proactively identified and cut off more than 2500 satellite link devices around suspected fraud centers in Myanmar.
When the Burmese military operated in KK Park before, it also found 30 sets of Starlink terminals and arrested more than 2,000 people.
This is the first time that facts and statements have matched the timeline, and the technical "brake" has been stepped on, but can this really hold down the out-of-control park?
In recent years, fraud parks in some parts of Southeast Asia have gradually fallen out of control, particularly in the areas around Mowadi in northern Myanmar, West Port in Cambodia and the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in Laos.
According to the United Nations Office for Combating Transnational Organized Crime (UNODC) Report on Governance of Transboundary Telecommunications Fraud Parks published in June 2024,
At present, about 127,000 cross-border fraud victims are trapped in various illegal parks around the world, 34% of whom are Chinese citizens. Most of these parks are entrenched in remote border areas. Separated from the effective control of the local government, some parks even set up private armed forces and equipped with control facilities such as stun batons and barbed wire. Violent incidents such as fleeing hostages and being tortured and killed, and forced extortion of family members for ransom occur frequently.
In April 2024, 17 Chinese citizens collectively resisted a fraud park in Myawaddy, northern Myanmar. Five people were killed after the incident was disclosed by survivors, which aroused strong concern in Chinese society about the crackdown on cross-border fraud parks.
The out-of-control of these fraud parks is not only reflected in the escalation of violence, but also highlights the technical shortcomings of cross-border law enforcement.
Because the park is mostly located in areas with weak ground communications infrastructure, local telecommunications networks are often monopolized by criminal groups, and the Chinese police are facing problems such as poor intelligence transmission and difficulty in targeting when carrying out cross-border law enforcement.
From 2023 to the first half of 2024, among the 11 joint law enforcement operations carried out by the Chinese police and many Southeast Asian countries, 3 of them were delayed due to communication interruptions, missing the opportunity to arrest the principal offender. Some hostages were also unable to transmit location information in real time, increasing the difficulty of rescue.
At this time, the need for technical support for low-band satellite communications systems is gradually emerging, and Musk operates the Starlink (Starlink) operated by SpaceX. As one of the world's most extensive low-band satellite networks, it has not been deeply involved in law enforcement support in the field due to service scope, international compliance and other considerations.
Previously, StarChain's service focused mostly on commercial users, remote areas of people's livelihoods and specific areas (such as Russian-Ukrainian battlefield communications), in the border area where East Asia's fraud park is located, StarChain's satellite coverage is insufficient, and due to the sovereign state's communications authorization issues, it has not established a cooperation channel with China's law enforcement agencies.
This “silence” is not a subjective avoidance, but a process limited to transnational technological cooperation – a commercial satellite system that requires authorization from target governments to provide targeted services and balances the boundaries between business operations and international law enforcement.
In May 2024, the Ministry of Public Security of China communicated with SpaceX through diplomatic channels, clearly putting out the need for satellite communications support in the fraud park concentration area, while providing detailed regional enforcement coordinates, communications security standards and humanitarian rescue priorities to lay the foundation for future cooperation.
In July 2024, SpaceX officially adjusted its service strategy to launch the “Transnational Anti-Fraud Communications Support Program”, which first expanded the low-orbital satellite coverage density of 50 kilometers around 12 key fraud parks, including Northern Thunbad and the West Port of Cambodia, from three service satellites per region to 12 satellites, ensuring that communication signals do not have a dead end.
Second, StarChain opens exclusive encrypted communication channels for Chinese police. Using end-to-end AES-256 encryption technology, law enforcement officers can transmit high-definition video, positioning data and voice commands in real time through a portable star link terminal (weighing about 2.3 kilograms and supporting 8 hours of field battery life). The communication delay is controlled within 22 milliseconds, meeting the real-time needs of cross-border law enforcement;
At the same time, StarChain has also deployed 3 groups of mobile satellite ground stations to be deployed on the Chinese side of the border between China and Myanmar, providing a backup communication link for law enforcement operations to prevent a single terminal from failing due to signal interference.
From 15 to 22 August 2024, the Chinese police joined the Burmese police to carry out the cross-border strike operation “Thorror – 2024”, providing communication support throughout the Star Chain.
At the critical stage of the operation, Chinese law enforcement officers received real-time videos of hostage detention sites lurking inside a large fraud park in Myawaddy through Starlink terminals, accurately located the locations of three armed checkpoints and one ammunition depot in the park, and then guided the Burmese police to carry out raids.
In the end, 17 core buildings of the park were destroyed, 217 Chinese citizens were rescued, including 12 minors who had been imprisoned for more than 6 months, and 136 suspects (including 8 leaders in Taiwan Province) were arrested. The seizure of counterfeit bank cards, fraudulent narrative scripts and other items involved in the case exceeded 2 tons, recovering economic losses of RMB 1.23 billion.
In the operation, the communication stability of the star chain is crucial — — the militants in the park have attempted to use signal shields to interfere with communication, but the star chain switched through satellite beams in real time, always keeping the law enforcement link smooth, this detail was specifically mentioned by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security in its follow-up action notice.
In addition to law enforcement support, Starlink also assisted in building a dynamic monitoring system for fraud parks.
Through the combination of satellite remote sensing data and information fed back by ground terminals, Starlink provided the Chinese police with real-time data such as building changes and personnel movement of 10 fraud parks in Myawaddy area. For example, in early September 2024, it was discovered through satellite images that a certain park had suddenly expanded its holding area. China police deployed rescue forces in advance based on this and successfully intercepted a criminal gang that tried to transfer 28 China citizens to Laos three days later.
As of October 2024, with the support of StarChain, the Chinese police have conducted five cross-border anti-fraud operations in Southeast Asia, cumulatively rescuing 489 Chinese citizens, and destroying seven fraud parks.
At present, SpaceX and relevant Chinese departments have reached a consensus on long-term cooperation, with StarChain planning to add 20 new low-orbital satellites to the Southeast Asian border area by the first quarter of 2025, while developing lightweight law enforcement dedicated terminals, further reducing equipment weight to 1.5 kilograms, and increasing outdoor life to 12 hours.
This technical support not only provides a new path to combating cross-border fraud, but also provides the international community with a cooperation model of "technology + law enforcement" in response to transnational crime, effectively compressing the living space of fraud parks, and effectively safeguarding Chinese citizens' overseas security rights and interests.