Latest news with #Laos
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Expanding External Opening-Up and Deepening Exchange and Cooperation
CHENGDU, China, May 31, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The 20th Western China International Fair was held in Chengdu from May 25 to 29 under the theme "Deepen Reform for More Momentum, Expand Openness for Greater Growth." This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Fair's establishment, attracting over 3,000 enterprises from 62 countries and regions, with Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua participating for the first time. Representatives from the guest countries of honor, Hungary and Laos, indicated that through the Fair, they have reached cooperation intentions with several Chinese enterprises and see broad collaboration potential with Western China in culture, tourism, technology, and culinary sectors. The next-generation artificial sun "China's HL-3" and other new and pioneering technologies and products were showcased at this Fair, speaking volumes about Western China's advanced manufacturing capabilities and scientific innovation potential. Currently, 13 of China's 80 national-level advanced manufacturing clusters are located in Western provinces. During this Fair, various parties from Western China signed 416 investment cooperation projects with domestic and international investors, totaling 354.3 billion yuan. Economic and trade matchmaking events such as the Multinational Enterprises "Invest in Sichuan" Symposium (Italy Session) and the 15th Western China International Sourcing Conference have provided broader platforms for exchange and cooperation between Chinese and foreign enterprises. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE WCIF
Al Jazeera
19 hours ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
How two Africans became trapped in a cyber-scam operation in Laos
Bokeo province, Laos – Khobby was living in Dubai last year when he received an intriguing message about a well-paying job working online in a far-flung corner of Southeast Asia. The salary was good, he was told. He would be working on computers in an office. The company would even foot the bill for his relocation to join the firm in Laos – a country of 7.6 million people nestled between China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar. With the company paying for his flights, Khobby decided to take the plunge. But his landing in Laos was anything but smooth. Khobby discovered that the promised dream job was rapidly becoming a nightmare when his Ghanaian passport was taken on arrival by his new employers. With his passport confiscated and threats of physical harm ever present, he endured months working inside a compound which he could not leave. The 21-year-old had become the latest victim of booming online cyber-scam operations in Southeast Asia – an industry that is believed to have enslaved tens of thousands of workers lured with the promise of decently paid jobs in online sales and the information technology industry. 'When I got there, I saw a lot of Africans in the office, with a lot of phones,' Khobby told Al Jazeera, recounting his arrival in Laos. 'Each person had 10 phones, 15 phones. That was when I realised this was a scamming job,' he said. The operation Khobby found himself working for was in a remote area in northwest Laos, where a casino city has been carved out of a patch of jungle in the infamous 'Golden Triangle' region – the lawless border zone between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand that has long been a centre for global drug production and trafficking. He said he was forced to work long days and sleep in a dormitory with five other African workers at night during the months he spent at the scam centre in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone. Khobby recounted the original message he received from an acquaintance encouraging him to take the job in Laos. 'My company is hiring new staff', he said, adding that he was told the salary was $1,200 per month. 'He told me it was data entry.' The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) where Khobby was lured to for work operates as an autonomous territory within Laos. Leased from Laotian authorities by Chinese national Zhao Wei, whom the US government has designated the leader of a transnational criminal organisation, life in the GTSEZ is monitored by a myriad of security cameras and protected by its own private security force. Clocks are set to Beijing time. Signage is predominantly in Chinese, and China's yuan is the dominant and preferred currency. Central to the GTSEZ city-state is Zhao Wei's Kings Romans casino, which the United States Treasury also described as a hub for criminal activity such as money laundering, narcotics and wildlife trafficking. During a recent visit to the zone by Al Jazeera, Rolls Royce limousines ferried gamblers to some of the city's casinos while workers toiled on the construction of an elaborate and expansive Venice-style waterway just a stone's throw from the Mekong river. While luxury construction projects – including the recently completed Bokeo International Airport – speak to the vast amounts of money flowing through this mini casino city, it is inside the grey, nondescript tower blocks dotted around the economic zone where the lucrative online scam trade occurs. Within these tower blocks, thousands of trafficked workers from all over the world – just like Khobby – are reported to spend up to 17 hours a day working online to dupe unsuspecting 'clients' into parting with their money. The online swindles are as varied as investing money in fake business portfolios to paying false tax bills that appear very real and from trading phoney cryptocurrency to being caught in online romance traps. Anti-trafficking experts say most of the workers are deceived into leaving their home countries – such are nearby China, Thailand and Indonesia or as far away as Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Ethiopia – with the promise of decent salaries. Khobby told how his 'data entry' job was, in fact, a scam known in the cybercrime underworld as 'pig butchering'. This is where victims are identified, cold-called or messaged directly by phone in a bid to establish a relationship. Trust is built up over time to the point where an initial investment is made by the intended victim. This can be, at first, a small amount of the victim's money or emotions in the case of fake online relationships. There are small rewards on the investments, Khobby explained, telling how those in the industry refer to their victims as pigs who are being 'fattened' by trust built up with the scammers. That fattening continues until a substantial monetary investment is made in whatever scam the victim has become part of. Then they are swiftly 'butchered', which is when the scammers get away with the ill-gotten gains taken from their victims. Once the butchering is done, all communications are cut with the victims and the scammers disappear without leaving a digital trace. According to experts, cyber-scamming inside the GTSEZ boomed during the 2019 and 2020 COVID lockdowns when restrictions on travel meant international visitors could not access the Kings Romans casino. In the years since, the cyber-scam industry has burgeoned, physically transcended borders to become one of the dominant profit-making illicit activities in the region, not only in the GTSEZ in Laos but also in neighbouring Cambodia and in conflict-ridden Myanmar. Though not as elaborate as the GTSEZ, purpose-built cyber-scam 'compounds' have proliferated in Myanmar's border areas with Thailand. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that cyber-scamming in Southeast Asia generates tens of billions annually, while the United States Institute of Peace equates the threat to that of the destructive fentanyl trade. 'Cyber-scam operations have significantly benefitted from developments in the fintech industry, including cryptocurrencies, with apps being directly developed for use at [cyber-scam] compounds to launder money,' said Kristina Amerhauser, of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. 'Victims and perpetrators are spread across different countries, money is laundered offshore, operations are global,' Amerhauser told Al Jazeera, explaining that the sophisticated technology used in cyber-scamming, along with its international reach, has made it extremely difficult to combat. About 260 trafficked scam-centre workers were recently rescued in a cross-border operation between Thailand and Myanmar. Yet, even in rare instances such as this when trafficked workers are freed, they still face complications due to their visa status and their own potential complicity in criminal activity. Khobby – who is now back in Dubai – told Al Jazeera that while he was coerced into working in the GTSEZ, he did actually receive the promised $1,200 monthly salary, and he had even signed a six-month 'contract' with the Chinese bosses who ran the operation. Richard Horsey, International Crisis Group's senior adviser on Myanmar, said Khobby's experience reflected a changing trend in recruitment by the criminal organisations running the scam centres. 'Some of the more sophisticated gangs are getting out of the human trafficking game and starting to trick workers to come,' Horsey said. 'People don't like to answer an advert for criminal scamming, and it's hard to advertise that. But once they're there, it's like – actually, we will pay you. We may have taken your passport, but there is a route to quite a lucrative opportunity here and we will give you a small part of that,' he said. The issue of salaries paid to coerced and enslaved workers complicates efforts to repatriate trafficking victims, who may be considered complicit criminals due to their status as 'paid' workers in the scam centres, said Eric Heintz, from the US-based anti-trafficking organisation International Justice Mission (IJM). 'We know of individuals being paid for the first few months they were inside, but then it tapers off to the point where they are making little – if any – money,' Heintz said, describing how victims become 'trapped in this cycle of abuse unable to leave the compound'. 'This specific aspect was a challenge early on with the victim identity process – when an official would ask if an individual previously in the scam compound was paid, the victim would answer that initially he or she was. That was enough for some officials to not identify them as victims,' Heintz said. Some workers have also been sold between criminal organisations and moved across borders to other scam centres, he said. 'We have heard of people being moved from a compound in one country to one in another – for example from Myawaddy to the GTSEZ or Cambodia and vice versa,' he said. Khobby said many of the workers in his 'office' had already had experience with scamming in other compounds and in other countries. 'Most of them had experience. They knew the job already,' he said. 'This job is going on in a lot of places – Thailand, Laos, Myanmar. They were OK because they got paid. They had experience and they knew what they were doing,' he added. High-school graduate Jojo said she was working as a maid in Kampala, Uganda, when she received a message on the Telegram messaging app about an opportunity in Asia that involved being sponsored to do computer studies as part of a job in IT. 'I was so excited,' Jojo recounted, 'I told my mum about the offer.' Jojo told how she was sent an airline ticket, and described how multiple people met her along the way as she journeyed from Kampala to Laos. Eventually Jojo arrived in the same scam operation as Khobby. She described an atmosphere similar to a fast-paced sales centre, with Chinese bosses shouting encouragement when a victim had been 'butchered' and their money stolen, telling how she witnessed people scammed for as much as $200,000. 'They would shout a lot, in Chinese – 'What are we here for? Money!'' On top of adrenaline, the scam operation also ran on fear, Jojo said. Workers were beaten if they did not meet targets for swindling money. Mostly locked inside the building where she worked and lived; Jojo said she was only able to leave the scam operation once in the four months she was in the GTSEZ, and that was to attend a local hospital after falling ill. Fear of the Chinese bosses who ran the operation not only permeated their workstations but in the dormitory where they slept. 'They told us 'Whatever happens in the room, we are listening',' she said, also telling how her co-workers were beaten when they failed to meet targets. 'They stopped them from working. They stopped them from coming to get food. They were not getting results. They were not bringing in the money they wanted. So they saw them as useless,' she said. 'They were torturing them every day.' Khobby and Jojo said they were moved to act in case it was their turn next. When they organised a strike to demand better treatment, their bosses brought in Laotian police and several of the strikers – including Jojo and Khobby – were taken to a police station where they were told they were sacked. They were also told they would not be paid what was owed in wages and their overseers refused to give their passports back. Khobby said he was left stranded without a passport and the police refused to help. 'This is not about only the Chinese people,' Khobby said. 'Even in Vientiane, they have immigration offices who are involved. They are the ones giving the visas. When I got to Laos, it was the immigration officer who was waiting for me. I didn't even fill out any form,' he said. With help from the Ghanaian embassy, Khobby and Jojo were eventually able to retrieve their passports, and with assistance from family and friends, they returned home. The IJM's Heintz, said that target countries for scammer recruitment – such as those in Africa – need better awareness of the dangers of trafficking. 'There needs to be better awareness at the source country level of the dangers associated with these jobs,' he said. Reflecting on what led him to work up the courage to lead a strike in the scam centre, Khobby considered his childhood back in Ghana. 'I was a boy who was raised in a police station. My grandpa was a police commander. So in that aspect, I'm very bold, I have that courage. I like giving things a try and I like taking risks,' he said. Jojo told Al Jazeera how she continues to chat online with friends who are still trapped in scam centres in Laos, and who have told her that new recruits arrive each day in the GTSEZ. Her friends want to get out of the scam business and the economic zone in Laos. But it is not so easy to leave, Jojo said. 'They don't have their passports,' she said.
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
‘Each person had 10 phones': Trapped in a cyber-scam centre in Laos
Bokeo province, Laos – Khobby was living in Dubai last year when he received an intriguing message about a well-paying job working online in a far-flung corner of Southeast Asia. The salary was good, he was told. He would be working on computers in an office. The company would even foot the bill for his relocation to join the firm in Laos – a country of 7.6 million people nestled between China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar. With the company paying for his flights, Khobby decided to take the plunge. But his landing in Laos was anything but smooth. Khobby discovered that the promised dream job was rapidly becoming a nightmare when his Ghanaian passport was taken on arrival by his new employers. With his passport confiscated and threats of physical harm ever present, he endured months working inside a compound which he could not leave. The 21-year-old had become the latest victim of booming online cyber-scam operations in Southeast Asia – an industry that is believed to have enslaved tens of thousands of workers lured with the promise of decently paid jobs in online sales and the information technology industry. 'When I got there, I saw a lot of Africans in the office, with a lot of phones,' Khobby told Al Jazeera, recounting his arrival in Laos. 'Each person had 10 phones, 15 phones. That was when I realised this was a scamming job,' he said. The operation Khobby found himself working for was in a remote area in northwest Laos, where a casino city has been carved out of a patch of jungle in the infamous 'Golden Triangle' region – the lawless border zone between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand that has long been a centre for global drug production and trafficking. He said he was forced to work long days and sleep in a dormitory with five other African workers at night during the months he spent at the scam centre in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone. Khobby recounted the original message he received from an acquaintance encouraging him to take the job in Laos. 'My company is hiring new staff', he said, adding that he was told the salary was $1,200 per month. 'He told me it was data entry.' The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) where Khobby was lured to for work operates as an autonomous territory within Laos. Leased from Laotian authorities by Chinese national Zhao Wei, whom the US government has designated the leader of a transnational criminal organisation, life in the GTSEZ is monitored by a myriad of security cameras and protected by its own private security force. Clocks are set to Beijing time. Signage is predominantly in Chinese, and China's yuan is the dominant and preferred currency. Central to the GTSEZ city-state is Zhao Wei's Kings Romans casino, which the United States Treasury also described as a hub for criminal activity such as money laundering, narcotics and wildlife trafficking. During a recent visit to the zone by Al Jazeera, Rolls Royce limousines ferried gamblers to some of the city's casinos while workers toiled on the construction of an elaborate and expansive Venice-style waterway just a stone's throw from the Mekong river. While luxury construction projects – including the recently completed Bokeo International Airport – speak to the vast amounts of money flowing through this mini casino city, it is inside the grey, nondescript tower blocks dotted around the economic zone where the lucrative online scam trade occurs. Within these tower blocks, thousands of trafficked workers from all over the world – just like Khobby – are reported to spend up to 17 hours a day working online to dupe unsuspecting 'clients' into parting with their money. The online swindles are as varied as investing money in fake business portfolios to paying false tax bills that appear very real and from trading phoney cryptocurrency to being caught in online romance traps. Anti-trafficking experts say most of the workers are deceived into leaving their home countries – such are nearby China, Thailand and Indonesia or as far away as Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Ethiopia – with the promise of decent salaries. Khobby told how his 'data entry' job was, in fact, a scam known in the cybercrime underworld as 'pig butchering'. This is where victims are identified, cold-called or messaged directly by phone in a bid to establish a relationship. Trust is built up over time to the point where an initial investment is made by the intended victim. This can be, at first, a small amount of the victim's money or emotions in the case of fake online relationships. There are small rewards on the investments, Khobby explained, telling how those in the industry refer to their victims as pigs who are being 'fattened' by trust built up with the scammers. That fattening continues until a substantial monetary investment is made in whatever scam the victim has become part of. Then they are swiftly 'butchered', which is when the scammers get away with the ill-gotten gains taken from their victims. Once the butchering is done, all communications are cut with the victims and the scammers disappear without leaving a digital trace. According to experts, cyber-scamming inside the GTSEZ boomed during the 2019 and 2020 COVID lockdowns when restrictions on travel meant international visitors could not access the Kings Romans casino. In the years since, the cyber-scam industry has burgeoned, physically transcended borders to become one of the dominant profit-making illicit activities in the region, not only in the GTSEZ in Laos but also in neighbouring Cambodia and in conflict-ridden Myanmar. Though not as elaborate as the GTSEZ, purpose-built cyber-scam 'compounds' have proliferated in Myanmar's border areas with Thailand. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that cyber-scamming in Southeast Asia generates tens of billions annually, while the United States Institute of Peace equates the threat to that of the destructive fentanyl trade. 'Cyber-scam operations have significantly benefitted from developments in the fintech industry, including cryptocurrencies, with apps being directly developed for use at [cyber-scam] compounds to launder money,' said Kristina Amerhauser, of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. 'Victims and perpetrators are spread across different countries, money is laundered offshore, operations are global,' Amerhauser told Al Jazeera, explaining that the sophisticated technology used in cyber-scamming, along with its international reach, has made it extremely difficult to combat. About 260 trafficked scam-centre workers were recently rescued in a cross-border operation between Thailand and Myanmar. Yet, even in rare instances such as this when trafficked workers are freed, they still face complications due to their visa status and their own potential complicity in criminal activity. Khobby – who is now back in Dubai – told Al Jazeera that while he was coerced into working in the GTSEZ, he did actually receive the promised $1,200 monthly salary, and he had even signed a six-month 'contract' with the Chinese bosses who ran the operation. Richard Horsey, International Crisis Group's senior adviser on Myanmar, said Khobby's experience reflected a changing trend in recruitment by the criminal organisations running the scam centres. 'Some of the more sophisticated gangs are getting out of the human trafficking game and starting to trick workers to come,' Horsey said. 'People don't like to answer an advert for criminal scamming, and it's hard to advertise that. But once they're there, it's like – actually, we will pay you. We may have taken your passport, but there is a route to quite a lucrative opportunity here and we will give you a small part of that,' he said. The issue of salaries paid to coerced and enslaved workers complicates efforts to repatriate trafficking victims, who may be considered complicit criminals due to their status as 'paid' workers in the scam centres, said Eric Heintz, from the US-based anti-trafficking organisation International Justice Mission (IJM). 'We know of individuals being paid for the first few months they were inside, but then it tapers off to the point where they are making little – if any – money,' Heintz said, describing how victims become 'trapped in this cycle of abuse unable to leave the compound'. 'This specific aspect was a challenge early on with the victim identity process – when an official would ask if an individual previously in the scam compound was paid, the victim would answer that initially he or she was. That was enough for some officials to not identify them as victims,' Heintz said. Some workers have also been sold between criminal organisations and moved across borders to other scam centres, he said. 'We have heard of people being moved from a compound in one country to one in another – for example from Myawaddy to the GTSEZ or Cambodia and vice versa,' he said. Khobby said many of the workers in his 'office' had already had experience with scamming in other compounds and in other countries. 'Most of them had experience. They knew the job already,' he said. 'This job is going on in a lot of places – Thailand, Laos, Myanmar. They were OK because they got paid. They had experience and they knew what they were doing,' he added. High-school graduate Jojo said she was working as a maid in Kampala, Uganda, when she received a message on the Telegram messaging app about an opportunity in Asia that involved being sponsored to do computer studies as part of a job in IT. 'I was so excited,' Jojo recounted, 'I told my mum about the offer.' Jojo told how she was sent an airline ticket, and described how multiple people met her along the way as she journeyed from Kampala to Laos. Eventually Jojo arrived in the same scam operation as Khobby. She described an atmosphere similar to a fast-paced sales centre, with Chinese bosses shouting encouragement when a victim had been 'butchered' and their money stolen, telling how she witnessed people scammed for as much as $200,000. 'They would shout a lot, in Chinese – 'What are we here for? Money!'' On top of adrenaline, the scam operation also ran on fear, Jojo said. Workers were beaten if they did not meet targets for swindling money. Mostly locked inside the building where she worked and lived; Jojo said she was only able to leave the scam operation once in the four months she was in the GTSEZ, and that was to attend a local hospital after falling ill. Fear of the Chinese bosses who ran the operation not only permeated their workstations but in the dormitory where they slept. 'They told us 'Whatever happens in the room, we are listening',' she said, also telling how her co-workers were beaten when they failed to meet targets. 'They stopped them from working. They stopped them from coming to get food. They were not getting results. They were not bringing in the money they wanted. So they saw them as useless,' she said. 'They were torturing them every day.' Khobby and Jojo said they were moved to act in case it was their turn next. When they organised a strike to demand better treatment, their bosses brought in Laotian police and several of the strikers – including Jojo and Khobby – were taken to a police station where they were told they were sacked. They were also told they would not be paid what was owed in wages and their overseers refused to give their passports back. Khobby said he was left stranded without a passport and the police refused to help. 'This is not about only the Chinese people,' Khobby said. 'Even in Vientiane, they have immigration offices who are involved. They are the ones giving the visas. When I got to Laos, it was the immigration officer who was waiting for me. I didn't even fill out any form,' he said. With help from the Ghanaian embassy, Khobby and Jojo were eventually able to retrieve their passports, and with assistance from family and friends, they returned home. The IJM's Heintz, said that target countries for scammer recruitment – such as those in Africa – need better awareness of the dangers of trafficking. 'There needs to be better awareness at the source country level of the dangers associated with these jobs,' he said. Reflecting on what led him to work up the courage to lead a strike in the scam centre, Khobby considered his childhood back in Ghana. 'I was a boy who was raised in a police station. My grandpa was a police commander. So in that aspect, I'm very bold, I have that courage. I like giving things a try and I like taking risks,' he said. Jojo told Al Jazeera how she continues to chat online with friends who are still trapped in scam centres in Laos, and who have told her that new recruits arrive each day in the GTSEZ. Her friends want to get out of the scam business and the economic zone in Laos. But it is not so easy to leave, Jojo said. 'They don't have their passports,' she said.
The Sun
a day ago
- Health
- The Sun
Blow to families after staff who served methanol laced drinks that killed Brit lawyer & 5 other backpackers in Laos FLEE
STAFF members who served a Brit backpacker and five other tourists deadly drinks laced with poison in Laos have sparked outrage by fleeing the country. The cruel twist came after Brit lawyer Simone White, 28, and five others died after consuming methanol-spiked vodka shots at the party hotspot last year. 5 5 5 According to the Herald Sun, at least two employees who were "detained" following the horrific ordeal have now fled Laos to neighbouring Vietnam. Tragic Simone was among five other backpackers who also lost their lives after drinking the same fatal beverages. Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both 19 and from Australia, as well as two young women from Denmark, Danes Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21, and American man James Louis Hutson, 57, were also killed. All of them were staying at the hostel along with 100 more guests. After hearing that two of the suspects had fled Laos, Bianca's dad told the Herald Sun: "We want the Australian Government to apply as much pressure as they can to bring justice to all those involved in the methanol poisoning of our girls, the Danish girl and the British girl in Laos." The group died after they consumed vodka and whiskey laced with deadly methanol at the Nana Backpackers hostel in the town of Vang Vieng last November. Simone was among the victims after she was rushed to hospital in a near paralytic state before being placed on life support for three days. Her mum Sue took a hellish 16-hour journey from Kent to Laos after hearing of her daughter's grave condition. She said she feared Simone would die after being called by the hospital who told her she needed emergency brain surgery. After arriving at Laos hospital Sue was given the devastating ultimatum over whether to leave her daughter on life support or not. Brit lawyer Simone White, 28, dies in 'methanol-laced alcohol poisoning' that left 4 others dead in backpacking hotspot Doctors refused to switch off the machine due to their religion - but told Sue she could do it herself. The distraught mum said she had to take a tube out of her dying daughter's mouth before making the incredibly painful and "traumatic" decision to switch off the machine. Simone's official cause of death was confirmed as a bleed on the brain, an inquest heard. No charges have been made six months after the fatal ordeal, despite Laotian authorities reportedly preparing charges for up to 13 people. The 13 suspects have been accused of violating food and health security, unlawful business operations and the elimination of evidence, according to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs. It comes just weeks after the families of Bianca and Holly, who died from suspected methanol poisoning, slammed cops over "appalling" charges. 5 5 The two teens tragically died just days after the shocking incident. Holly's mother told 60 Minutes: "[The charges are] pretty appalling, I'd say pretty insulting.' Bianca's furious mum added: 'I think we're pretty furious about it … Food and beverage. "You know, that's like? What is that? We don't even know." The parents also said they had written to Laos Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone 'a million times'. The desperate parents claimed to have even contacted his wife, but still say they have not received a response. Why is methanol so deadly? By Sam Blanchard, Health Correspondent METHANOL is a super-toxic version of alcohol that may be present in drinks if added by crooks to make them stronger or if they are brewed or distilled badly. The consequences can be devastating because as little as a single shot of contaminated booze could be deadly, with just 4ml of methanol potentially enough to cause blindness. Prof Oliver Jones, a chemist at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, said: 'The body converts methanol to formic acid. 'Formic acid blocks the action of an enzyme that is critical to how the body uses oxygen to generate energy. 'If it stops working, cells cannot take up or use oxygen from the blood and lack of oxygen causes problems in a range of organs as the cells start to die. 'Symptoms of methanol poisoning include vomiting, seizures and dizziness. 'The optic nerve seems to be particularly vulnerable to methanol toxicity, so there is the potential for temporary or permanent blindness, and even death. 'While thankfully rare, methanol poisoning is very serious, and treatment should be given at a hospital.' An unexpected but key way of treating methanol poisoning is to get the patient drunk with normal alcohol - known as ethanol - to distract the liver and stop it processing the methanol.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- General
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE My mother was murdered by a migrant in cold blood. A liberal 'coward' with White House ambitions set him free
A 'barbaric' killer controversially deported to East Africa by President Donald Trump 's ICE agents should still be in locked up behind bars, insists the victim's daughter. 'He should have never been paroled,' Birte Pfleger told Daily Mail of Thongxay Nilakout, 48, a native of Laos in Southeast Asia. 'It was devastating.' College professor Pfleger, 57, spoke hauntingly of the searing grief over her 64-year-old mother Gisela's heinous assassination-style murder in 1994 and how the pain is just as raw 31 years later. She also condemned California Governor Gavin Newsom as a 'coward' for his role in the convict's shocking release from Solana State Prison two years ago. Pfleger said Newsom, who is believed to be positioning himself for a 2028 White House run amid continuing leadership chaos in the Democrat party, passed the buck 'rather than do the right thing' when he had an opportunity to overturn a 2023 parole board decision to release the brutal killer. Rather than reverse the board's contentious ruling - one of his executive powers as governor - he instead praised Nilakout and chose to have an 'en banc' hearing instead, meaning a larger group of parole board members would have the final say. The group, thanks to Newsom, affirmed the original parole board decision and allowed Nilakout to leave prison. 'He's a coward for not doing what is right,' said Pfleger of governor, who has been repeatedly criticized for his soft stance on crime. 'In the end, he took the easy way out. 'I knew he wasn't going to do it. The political will wasn't there. 'He was following the general consensus of Democrats in Sacramento - that the days of long sentences were over; there's prison overcrowding and prisons needed to be closed. 'As long as offenders did not kill law enforcement officials or [had] sexually assaulted children, the inmates should be released.' Nilakout emptied all five bullets from his weapon into Gisela and her husband. The couple were visiting from their native Germany when they were set upon by him and two associates who were also convicted and sent to prison. He used his first two bullets to shoot her in the head as she lay helpless on the ground. And the three remaining shells he pumped into Klaus, Pfleger's father, now 93, who miraculously survived. Surgeons were unable to remove one of the bullets, however, as it was lodged near an artery and it remains in his body, behind his shoulder, as a painful reminder of the savage attack. Today, he remains tortured from losing his beloved wife. 'This never ends,' admits his daughter. 'There is no closure.' Pfleger was contacted by Newsom's Deputy Legal Affairs Secretary, Jasmin Turner-Bond, via a May 10, 2023 email with the subject line: 'The Governor has made a decision in the Nilakout case.' She wrote: 'Dear Ms. Pfleger, The Governor has decided to refer inmate Nilakout's grant for an en banc review.' 'He's a coward for not doing what is right,' said Birte Pfleger of Governor Newsom. 'In the end, he took the easy way out In a signed statement dated the same day, Newsom wrote: 'I acknowledge that Mr. Nilakout committed this crime when he was 17 years old and that he has since been incarcerated for 28 years. 'The psychologist who evaluated Mr. Nilakout found that, at the time of the crime, Mr. Nilakout demonstrated hallmark features of youth, which diminished his culpability under youth offender laws. 'I also acknowledge that Mr. Nilakout has made efforts to improve himself in prison. He has participated in self-help programming, earned a GED, and taken college courses. 'I commend him for his efforts in rehabilitation and encourage him to continue on this positive path. 'However, I find this case warrants the consideration of the full Board of Parole Hearings to determine whether Mr. Nilakout can be safely released at this time. 'The psychologist who evaluated Mr. Nilakout identified current areas of concern that include the 'life crime involving extreme violence against unknown and vulnerable victims, [his] participation in documented negative behavior through 2014, and some ongoing deficits in awareness or understanding related to life crime or subsequent negative behavior.' 'The psychologist found that Mr. Nilakout's 'deficits in awareness and understanding related to the life crime and other more recent negative behavior remain present, [but] seem to be decreasing.' 'While this is an encouraging sign that Mr. Nilakout has made progress in rehabilitation, I ask the full Board to assess whether Mr. Nilakout has sufficiently mitigated his risk factors, and whether his release on parole is consistent with public safety. 'For these reasons, I refer the decision to parole Mr. Nilakout back to the Board for en banc consideration.' Nilakout is one of eight violent immigrant criminals ejected from the country last week and flown by a government Gulfstream jet to East Africa headed to landlocked South Sudan. The men are currently under guard at an American military base in the Republic of Djibouti on the Horn of Africa at the southern tip of the Red Sea amid a fierce legal brawl between an 'activist' federal judge and Trump's administration. Critics and attorneys for the men assert Trump's administration is brazenly attempting to skirt legal proceedings in order to permanently banish them. In April, Massachusetts U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy ordered the government to give deportees at least 15 days notice before sending them to a third-country - one where they had previously lived or where they were born. They should also be allowed to tell a court if they fear persecution or torture at their final destinations. But the men were deported anyway with Trump's backing. Other than Nilakout, the men are from countries including Vietnam, Cuba and Mexico. One of them is from South Sudan. So on May 20, an irate Judge Murphy held an emergency hearing and stated U.S. officials must retain custody and control of the migrants while he determines if their removal from the States was unlawful. This in turn prompted swift and fierce pushback from the Department of Homeland Security which controls the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A DHS statement called the men 'some of the most barbaric, violent individuals illegally in the United States' Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, called the judge's ruling 'deranged.' She added: 'These depraved individuals have all had their day in court and been given final deportation orders. 'A reminder of who was on this plane: murderers, child rapists, an individual who raped a mentally & physically disabled person. 'The message this activist judge is sending to victims and their families is we don't care.' President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem 'are working every day to get vicious criminals out of our country while activist judges are fighting to bring them back onto American soil.' The Supreme Court has now taken up the case. Nilakout was 17 at the time of the slaying near the mountain town of Idyllwild, 110 miles east of Los Angeles. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and robbery and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. However, a ruling in 2012 meant that juveniles convicted a violent crime must be given a chance for parole and freedom. Against Pfleger's hopes that he remained in jail, Nilakout was granted parole and he received a final order of removal in July 2023. 'He's no different,' she said. 'He doesn't take full responsibility for shooting my mom when she was lying face down. The only reason my dad is still alive is because he [Nilakout] had run out of bullets.' A former Green Card holder, he then spent five months in ICE custody immediately following his release from prison before being set fully free. He was picked up again by ICE agents on January 26 this year - five days after Trump's second inauguration. Pfleger, who teaches history at California State University, Los Angeles, described all eight men sent to Africa as 'criminals convicted of heinous crimes.' Over the years, the mother-of-two was determined to attend parole hearings for her mother's killers which she described as a 'traumatic' experience. She recalled long drives to be in person for Nilakout's hearings. 'I had two small children at the time, but I took time off from work and time away from my family,' she said. 'I'm this very normal law abiding person. I'd never been close to a prison. That was all very weird.' When one of Nilakout's two accomplices was granted parole 'there was nothing I could do. The parole officers actually said, 'Our hands are tied.'' Pfleger criticized the parole process as 'entirely meaningless when it comes to the victim's input. 'They've now changed things to the point where you can't even talk about the actual crime. It's all about what has the inmate done since being incarcerated. No one asks about the permanent consequences, pain, suffering of the victims.' Despite the deep frustration and disappointment, she has 'made peace' with Nilakout's release from prison. But she has not revealed to her father the updates regarding the three men convicted of his wife's murder as it would be too upsetting for him. 'He has has social anxiety,' she said. 'He's never recovered.' She added: 'When it came to the parole hearings, I knew that I owed this to my dad. I owe it to the memory of my mom. I owe this to my kids who never got to meet their grandmother. I did everything I could for them not to get out.' Judge Murphy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said the U.S. government must 'maintain custody and control of class members currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country, to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful.' He sensationally warned that the administration officials who enabled the deportations to South Sudan of Nilakout and the seven others could potentially face criminal penalties. Federal law specifically prohibits the government from deporting people to countries where their lives or freedom would be threatened because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion or where they fear they would face torture. 'I wasn't jumping for joy when I heard that he was on that plane to go to South Sudan,' admitted Pfleger. 'It's a problem when someone's due process rights are violated. Either we have these rights and they apply to everyone - or we don't. 'It's dangerous when we don't have them and there are somehow these exceptions. Everyone who is in this country due process rights regardless of immigration status. 'When a judge says you cannot be deported right now, you have the right to object. You have the right to consult with an attorney. When that doesn't happen then that's a problem.' 'Do I care if he gets released to South Sudan and something happens to him in terms of violence. No, not really. But it's a problem when basic rights are violated by the government. 'Nothing brings my mother back. Nothing eases my dad's pain. He thinks that they're all still in prison. 'Where do you draw the line? Here's a convicted murderer but there's a legal process. Now there's an administration that says, "Screw those laws, screw any orders - we're getting rid of them."'
