Kai Zhuang: Chinese teen found alive in US after 'cyber kidnapping'
Kai Zhuang: Chinese teen found alive in US after 'cyber kidnapping'
Exchange student Kai Zhuang is discovered freezing in the Utah mountains after parents pay ransom.
A Chinese foreign exchange student has been found freezing but alive in the US after his parents were extorted out of tens of thousands of dollars in a "cyber kidnapping" scam.
Kai Zhuang was discovered "very cold and scared" in a tent in rural Utah, Riverdale Police said in a statement.
The 17-year-old is believed to have isolated himself after being manipulated by the kidnappers.
His parents were then tricked into paying around $80,000 (£62,600).
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According to police, victims of cyber kidnapping convince their victims to isolate themselves, and even take pictures of themselves to make it appear they are being held captive - despite the kidnappers not being present. Instead, the victim is monitored through Facetime or Skype.
Both the victim and their families are then convinced the other will be harmed if they do not comply.
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In case anyone else was mystified about how this could ever possibly work:
https://www.abc4.com/news/local-news/what-is-cyber-kidnapping-and-how-to-stay-safe/
Still a little silly to anyone who grew up around internet culture, but slightly more understandable as something that could take advantage of people not knowing that digital information should always be fundamentally distrusted as potentially faked, with no exceptions.
My aunt works as a book keeper for a small Canadian company, and they have a Chinese foreign student working there. About a month ago he got snared by one of those spearphishing scams. Someone texted him pretending to be the owner, got him to buy a bunch of gift cards and email the codes on the back. The scam only stopped because my aunt asked him where he was off to as he was on his way out to buy a second round of gift cards.
Personally, I've been getting robocalls in Chinese for over a year now. Sometimes multiple calls a day, they're annoying as hell because they leave a voicemail every time. I'm not sure what the scam is for those but I suspect it's related to work or student visas, with the scammer posing as a Canadian government official so they can scare the target into paying.
It seems pretty clear to me that Chinese nationals abroad have been identified as a lucrative target for these sorts of scams. Not sure why that is, but I'd guess it has to do with access to funds plus a cultural tendency toward deference to authority maybe?
They also tend to be wealthier, given that they were eligible for work or school abroad programs.
To further expand on deference to authority, I would hypothesize they overall find the bombardment of disparate and frequently contradictory ideas in the west a little confusing, and potentially exhausting.
Our elderly that mostly pre-date the information age often face a similar issue. They come from a time when almost all the news sources agreed with each other, more or less.
Just my guess though, I have zero data.
That sentence I just typed is a sound example though, many people all over the world would cock an eyebrow at the need for "data". "Wtf?" would be a common response. It's useful to remember we only think in those terms due to being long-trained in modern STEM and spending our lives around computers. It's very different from our more "natural" state, which is pretty intensely chaotic and adapts itself to the needs of our environment, whatever that is. We all experienced it during childhood. It can go in any direction though, and going in the STEM direction specifically takes years of dedicated effort that only a small minority of the total population seriously attempt.
STEM training also just happens to naturally undermine authoritarian structures, because it directly contradicts the basic principle that the authority, not reality, should be dictating the most fundamental truth. They even frequently describe things in terms of "truths" instead of evidence.
There are many potential reasons that could be, such as relative lack of societal experience in a different country, trust in fellow countrymen due to language barrier, as well as loneliness due the lack of local support structure.
However, to suggest there is a "cultural tendency toward deference to authority" for the Chinese as if they are some kind of hive mind instead of individual people is discriminatory stereotyping. Please refrain from this in the future.
I want foreign students to know they can trust the police
😂😂 Of all the police on the planet.... Fuckin hell
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Fortunately it had this link in it. Should be better. I'd think anyway.