Ok, justice might be too strong of a word. But I agree with making these fraudsters pay for their actions. 

I was reading an article in the Economist that China is engaged in a “quanfan” process – persuading alleged criminals to return to China by pressuring their relatives in China and using “goons to threaten suspects in the countries where they live.” 

According to the Economist, “Between April 2021 and July last year, about 230,000 people suspected of transnational cyber and telecoms crimes were ‘educated and persuaded to return to China,’ according to state media. In the first nine months of 2021, quanfan secured the return of 54,000 people just from northern Myanmar, a notorious hotspot for cyber and telecoms crime.”

Even though China has close ties with the countries where scamming takes place, the Chinese government isn’t waiting for others to handle the issue: 

“Unlike America, most of these countries have close ties with China, including its police force. But China clearly is not content to wait for them to shut down the scammers’ operations by themselves. Online and telephone fraud causes huge public resentment in China—probably more so, day to day, than corruption. 

So local governments, with prodding from Beijing, are vying to show their toughness with sweeping sanctions against suspects’ families at home.”

After helping my parents recognize a phone scam, I can’t help but ask, why isn’t our nation doing more to hold fraudsters accountable?

I realize that putting unknown pressure on the family while the relative commits a crime is extreme and harsh. But in the end, the resulting arrest saves millions of innocent victims from falling for these all-too-common scams.