Tangentially perhaps, what they’re talking about is related to pig butchering scams running out of “business parks” situated along the border with Thailand (in Cambodia and Myanmar). The people operating the scams are essentially kidnap victims lured with false job listings and coerced into working to pay off phony debts. Many of these are Chinese nationals but it seems to be a pretty mixed bag.

The article focuses on Chinese nationals seeking to leave the country to travel somewhere with casinos. Remote casino resorts have been sprouting up around various parts of Southeast Asia over the last decade or so. Many of these are also situated not far from the border with Thailand, but I’ve only heard of Chinese casinos in Myanmar and Laos. Casinos are illegal in Thailand so these attract Thai nationals as well as tourists looking to pass through Thailand to evade suspicion.

The owners/operators of these fraud centers and casinos are thought to related or even one and the same groups of Chinese “investors”/“businessmen”. This is largely anecdotal speculation however, as I’m not able to provide a reliable source for the connection here.

Not just South Park, in BASEketball there’s a Hawaiian luau scene where one of the characters gives a big speech that ends the animosity between the two main characters.

Should’ve seen this coming

I grew up along the border with Idaho and still can’t understand them 20 or so years later.

I traveled to Europe for the first time only a few years ago, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to enter (as an American). The customs officer at Frankfurt didn’t utter a single word to me, just checked my passport and waved me through. Guess I’m too used to American government processes and institutions where efficiency and convenience are low priority for the end user.

Hopefully the ETIAS authorization process will bar these types whenever that goes live

This is why he’s having such a hard time getting Musk to leave. How do you make a problem go away when your only problem solving skill is bribery and your problem is a higher degree of wealth than your bribing power?

Don’t forget the various foreign nationals they tricked with promises of well paying support jobs only to hand them rifles and send them to the front lines.