Like any transnational criminal enterprise, the global scamming industry is swathed in secrecy.

如同所有跨国犯罪集团，全球诈骗产业也笼罩着一层神秘色彩。

But last month, The New York Times gained access to Shunda Park, an office complex in the middle of war-torn Myanmar that was built for a single purpose: stealing money from people around the world.

然而上个月，《纽约时报》进入了顺达园区。这个办公园区位于战火纷飞的缅甸腹地，其建造目的只有一个：从全球民众手中骗取钱财。

The rare look at the inner workings of the multibillion-dollar scamming business occurred after a rebel militia that has been fighting the Myanmar military captured Shunda Park. Inside was a trove of materials — online chats, company documents, handwritten notebooks — that laid bare how Chinese-run criminal networks have industrialized the online scam.

一支长期与缅甸军方对抗的反政府武装攻占顺达园区后，外界得以罕见窥见这个价值数十亿美元的诈骗产业的内部运作。园区内部发现的聊天记录、公司文件、手写笔记等大量材料彻底揭露了由中国人士操控的犯罪网络如何产业化运作网络诈骗。

More than 3,500 fraudsters from dozens of countries worked at Shunda, some trafficked into the business themselves. Every day, the lowest echelon sent out thousands of hellos to people on Facebook and other social media. Others role-played alluring men and women in online chats or impersonated crypto investors.

来自数十个国家的3500多名诈骗分子曾在顺达园区工作，其中部分人本身也是被拐卖至此。每天，层级最低的诈骗人员会在Facebook等社交媒体上给数以千计的人发送搭讪信息。另有一些人在网聊中扮演俊男靓女，或是冒充加密货币投资者。

At Shunda, there were dedicated video-call rooms with fake backdrops of a corporate suite or tastefully decorated apartment. Deepfake images, doctored videos and actors wearing wigs completed the grifts.

顺达园区内设有专门的视频通话室，配备公司办公室或装修考究的公寓等假背景。加上深度伪造的图片、篡改过的视频，以及戴着假发的演员，共同完成了这场骗局。

The frauds often took months to unfold, with scammers playing love interests before introducing investment opportunities.

这类诈骗往往耗时数月才能完成：诈骗分子会先扮演恋爱对象，随后再伺机抛出投资机会。

In the days before Shunda was shuttered by the rebel force, the scammers impersonated a beautiful young Asian woman named Vivian. She flattered a truck driver from Kansas and a retired deputy sheriff in New Mexico. She told a large-animal veterinarian that he was handsome, then turned her attention to an electrical engineer.

在反政府武装攻陷顺达园区的前几天，这里的诈骗分子曾假扮过一个名叫薇薇安的年轻亚裔美女。她一边恭维着来自堪萨斯州的卡车司机和新墨西哥州的退休副警长，一边夸赞一位大型动物兽医英俊潇洒，随即又将目标转向了一名电气工程师。

One man responded to her online missives with a smiley-face emoji.

有一名男性受害者用一个笑脸表情回复她的网聊信息。

“Age is just a number,” he wrote, according to a review of the online chats.

“年龄只是个数字，”根据网络聊天记录显示，他写道。

The piles of notebooks found at Shunda show the effort put into creating fake personas. Over dozens of pages, for instance, a Chinese man named Chen Minchen comes to life. His first love was a fellow college student, whom he mistakenly hit with a basketball, showing both his athleticism and his care in apologizing to her. His blood type is B. His zodiac sign is Leo; that’s his English first name, too. His mother loves to cook braised pork belly. He owns a Mercedes-Benz and a $1.2 million apartment in Hong Kong.

从顺达园区查获的堆积如山的笔记本揭示了诈骗分子为塑造虚假人设煞费苦心。例如，一本笔记本用数十页篇幅虚构出了一个名叫陈敏晨（音）的中国男子形象：他的初恋是大学同窗，两人相识的契机是他打篮球时不小心砸到了对方，这个细节既能体现他热爱运动，又能凸显他向她道歉的体贴；他的血型是B型，星座是狮子座，英文名字Leo也由此而来；他的母亲擅长做红烧肉；他开着一辆奔驰车，在香港还拥有一套价值120万美元的公寓。

The scam manuals are subtle: Target women in China over 30, but for women in Taiwan, try 40 and older.

这些诈骗手册非常讲究策略：针对中国的女性目标是30岁以上人群，针对台湾的女性则是40岁及以上群体。

For the Taiwan cohort, days one to three of the scam are for getting to know the basics, like the target’s occupation, hobbies, relationship status. Days three to five are for “making up stories about childhood to appear relatable.” By days five to seven, romance enters the chat, especially in the evening when women are supposedly more receptive.

针对台湾目标人群，诈骗前三日用于了解基本信息，要以闲聊方式摸清对方的职业、爱好以及感情状况等基本信息；第三至五天则要“编造童年故事，建立情感共鸣”；到了第五至七天，就要在聊天中切入感情话题，尤其是在夜晚时分，据说此时女性更容易敞开心扉。

The scammer is to say that he admires women for their internal beauty, not their outward appearance. But he also should demand respect for his professional judgment. Then he should introduce an investment scheme.

诈骗分子要向对方表示，自己更欣赏女性的内在美，而非外在容貌。但与此同时，也要强调自身的专业判断力应受尊重，继而抛出投资方案。

“Strike precisely,” the scam manual says. “Create her dreams.”

“精准出击，为她编织美梦，”诈骗手册上这样写道。

Later, the fraudster coaches the women on how to deal with bank tellers worried about their large withdrawals. Say it’s for your upcoming wedding, a manual instructs. Different cryptocurrencies and trading platforms are discussed.

在这之后，诈骗分子还会指导受害者如何应对银行柜员对大额提款的质疑。手册建议谎称筹备婚礼所需。此外，手册中还列出了各类加密货币及交易平台。

One scamming notebook ends with a chilling directive: “Induce the customer to add more money, until all her savings and loans are completely wiped out.”

一本诈骗笔记本的末尾，写着一条令人不寒而栗的指令：“诱导客户追加投资，直至其所有积蓄与贷款被榨干为止。”

Some of the scammers at Shunda directed their victims to a financial investment platform called Renaissance Technologies AI Supercomputing Hedge Capital Ltd., or RTAI for short. RTAI has a website and smartphone apps that tout mastery of global financial-market data.

顺达园区的部分诈骗分子会引导受害者登录一个名为 “复兴科技人工智能超级计算对冲资本有限公司”（简称 “RTAI”）的金融投资平台。RTAI设有官方网站和智能手机应用程序，宣称掌握全球金融市场数据。

RTAI claims to have executives trained at major investment houses. One has a finance degree from Harvard. The company says its New York headquarters are in a building called The Times Center, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

RTAI声称，公司高管曾在大型投资机构受训，其中一人有哈佛大学金融学位。该公司还对外宣称，其纽约总部位于时报中心大厦——这栋建筑隶属于纽约时报公司。

David, a property broker from Mexico who, like several interviewed victims, agreed to speak only if he was identified by a single name, said he was approached over the summer on Facebook by a “beautiful girl” named Marina from San Francisco. On videos, she paraded her luxurious life, funded by her investments in RTAI. She introduced David to the platform and sent him financial documents in Spanish. Marina even gave him seed money, which grew quickly. He withdrew those earnings but later invested his savings at Marina’s prodding.

来自墨西哥的房产经纪人戴维（和其他几位接受采访的受害者一样，他要求只公开自己的名字）表示，去年夏天，一名自称来自旧金山、名叫玛丽娜的“美女”在Facebook上主动联系了他。玛丽娜在视频中炫耀着自己靠投资RTAI过上的奢华生活，随后将戴维引荐至该平台，还给他发送了西班牙语版本的财务文件。玛丽娜甚至还为戴维提供了一笔启动资金，这笔钱很快就实现了增值。戴维成功取出了这笔收益，但后来在玛丽娜的劝说下，投入了自己的全部积蓄。

In May, Oscar, a computer technician from Ecuador, met a Chinese woman named Annie. The RTAI scam that unfolded was the same. In fact, there is no company called RTAI — or any company at all — renting offices in The Times Center event space. There is no such thing as a finance major at Harvard. None of the supposed founders of RTAI have any digital footprint. No one at RTAI responded to queries from The Times.

5月，来自厄瓜多尔的电脑技术员奥斯卡结识了一位名叫安妮的中国女性。随后的RTAI骗局再度上演。事实上，根本不存在所谓的RTAI公司在时报中心大厦的活动区租用办公室（这里根本就不存在公司租用）。哈佛大学没有金融专业。该公司声称的所有创始人，在网络上都查不到任何相关信息。《纽约时报》就相关问题向该公司求证，但始终未收到任何回复。

In November, just as fighting near Shunda Park intensified, David and Oscar, along with hundreds of others from Mexico to Brazil, found they could no longer withdraw funds from their RTAI accounts. After The Times contacted RTAI, some of the apps stopped working. But on RTAI’s Telegram channel, the number of new subscribers increased by the day.

去年11月，就在顺达园区附近的战事愈演愈烈之际，戴维、奥斯卡以及数百名来自墨西哥、巴西等地的受害者发现，他们再也无法从RTAI的账户中提现。《纽约时报》就此联系该公司后，其旗下部分应用程序便停止了运行。但在该公司的Telegram频道上，新订阅用户的数量仍在与日俱增。