On this Out of the Loop, Nathan Paul Southern and Lindsey Kennedy explain the consumer decisions and corporate interests fueling conflict in Rwanda.Welcome to what we're calling our "Out of the Loop" episodes, where we dig a little deeper into fascinating current events that may only register as a blip on the media's news cycle and have conversations with the people who find themselves immersed in them. Investigative journalists Nathan Paul Southern and Lindsey Kennedy are here to help us understand why we're hearing a lot about Rwanda in recent news.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1145On This Episode of Out of the Loop, We Discuss:The M23 militia has recently resurged in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), taking over parts of North Kivu province and effectively controlling access to valuable mineral resources like cobalt, gold, and coltan — minerals critical for modern technology including electric vehicles and AI chips.There appears to be a connection between the UK's Rwanda refugee resettlement program (which sent hundreds of millions of pounds to Rwanda) and the reemergence of the M23, which had previously disappeared when international aid was threatened to be cut off. The timing suggests the UK money may have indirectly funded the militia.Rwanda is allegedly stealing minerals from the DRC, bringing them across the border, and claiming they were mined in Rwanda — creating the appearance of "conflict-free" minerals that major tech companies like Apple and Tesla can claim to use, even though they ultimately come from conflict zones.The conflict has become increasingly complicated with the involvement of private military contractors from various countries, Russian interests, and American billionaires like Elon Musk and Eric Prince potentially making deals to control mineral resources in the region.Understanding these complex global connections can empower us to make more ethical consumer choices. By researching which companies prioritize truly ethical sourcing and supporting organizations that monitor conflict minerals, we can use our purchasing power to encourage corporate responsibility and transparency in global supply chains for technologies we rely on daily.And much more!Connect with Jordan on Twitter, on Instagram, and on YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on an Out of the Loop episode, drop Jordan a line at [email protected] and let him know!Connect with Nathan Paul Southern on Twitter.Connect with Lindsey Kennedy at her website and on Twitter.And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/dealsSign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Who are the main guests discussing Rwanda and Congo conflicts?
Sie waren vor ein paar Jahren auf dem Weg, die Scam-Call-Centers zu öffnen und wie viele von ihnen tatsächlich von Menschen-Traffikern und Slaven-Labor verwendet werden. Also all diese Scam-Calls, Scam-Texte, die Sie bekommen, sind oft von Leuten, die gegen ihre Willen gehalten werden.
Und heute machen wir ein Update auf die Cyber-Slavery-Ding, Menschen, die in diese Scam-Call-Centers verhaftet werden. Also die Verbindung zwischen Cyberslaverie, Nordkorea, Yakuza, Triads und anderen organisierten Kriminellengruppen, sowie Scam-Call-Zentren, plus ein Update, was in Rwanda und Kongo passiert. Überraschend ist, dass sie tatsächlich in manchen Fällen verbunden sind.
Kongo und Rwanda kämpfen tatsächlich über die Kontrolle von Mineral-Ressourcen mit der Hilfe von Russland, USA und anderen fremden privaten Militärunternehmen. Das ist aber ein unglaublich neuer Level von Konflikt. Every time I talk to you guys, it's a weird time over there. And yes, there's time zone stuff, but I just get the idea that your city Phnom Penh in Cambodia is just 24 hour operation.
Is that accurate?
Yeah, Nathan is literally sitting in a 24-hour bar next to the flat.
24-hour bar sounds like it could be a dangerous place, not just for you as somebody who likes to drink a little bit, but for the type of clientele that a 24-hour bar attracts, sounds like it could go from the backpacker all the way up to, who's at a bar at 7 o'clock in the morning? That's basically the question.
Oh Gott. I see. We have had the odd Belgian pedophile. What's that, Belgian pedophiles? Yeah, it was a 12-year-old or a 10-year-old boy that he was with.
He was so 15, yeah. Yeah. Gross.
But we tweeted about it at the time and the Belgian embassy got in touch within minutes and said, can you give us all his details and we're going to try and get him on the way out of the country. Oh, wow. So they did take it seriously. Yeah.
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Chapter 2: What is the scale and nature of cyber slavery and scam call centers in Cambodia?
Wow.
And down in Kokong right now, you're like, oh, you can probably get, we're counting the floors and we're like, okay, you could probably get maybe 5,000 people in that building. And then you see that they're building 20 of them in a row. And that's just, again, one small strip of real estate. So yeah, a couple of years ago, there was an estimate that came out in Cambodia that said about 120,000.
It's probably a lot more than that now.
Really? Oh my God, that's a metropolis of just crime.
Ja, und ich weiß, dass dieses Niveau getestet wurde, weil es keine richtige Art und Weise ist, das herauszufinden. Es ist wirklich akkurat, aber eine der großen Anti-Scam-Organisationen hat letztendlich kalkuliert, dass sie denken, dass rund ein Trillionen Dollar pro Jahr durch Scams gestohlen wird. Ein Trillionen Dollar. Das ist fast 1% des Weltrechts jedes Jahr durch Scams.
Also die Skala ist einfach enorm. Ja.
Ein generell akzeptierter Faktor für die USA wäre etwa 50 Billionen Dollar pro Jahr. Das wäre ein großer Unterestimator, weil die meisten Leute es nicht beurteilen. Aber 50 Billionen Euro von den USA allein ist ein gut akzeptiertes Niveau, ein Minimum. Aber um ein bisschen Kontext zu geben, was einige dieser Plätze jetzt aussehen.
Okay, wir haben die dodgy indischen Restaurants, wo sie Zelltüren haben, die sie auf dem Ruf bauen, was uns wirklich hilfreich ist. um herauszufinden, wo etwas passiert, weil es eine riesige Zelttür auf einem kleinen indischen oder chinesischen Restaurant gibt. Das hilft wirklich. Aber dann gehst du zu einigen dieser Orte und es sind volle Städte. Nichts anderes funktioniert als Platt-Scan.
Lindsay hat Kokon erwähnt. Und einer der wenigen Menschen, die auf der Cambodianer Seite gesankt wurden, ist ein Typ namens Leon Pat. Er wurde letztes Jahr von den USA, den Vereinigten Königsländern und dem ganzen Weltkrieg sanktiert. Und was er getan hat, ist, dass er sich seitdem hart daran gehalten hat. Er hat also eine Menge Casinos, große Gebäude, Tausende von Leuten.
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Chapter 3: How do North Korea and organized crime syndicates interact with scam industries?
We arrived at the same time as a couple of very nice middle-class Rwandan families who were looking for a starter home. And it became very apparent very quickly that this was a housing development for starter homes for middle-class families. And we were so confused and they were showing us around and we just said...
I'm a little bit confused because we're from the UK and we were told that this development was going to be homes for resettled refugees. And the guy just went, oh my God, like that woman, she just turned up here. They were having like a kind of like passing out ceremony for people who'd finished this construction training thing. And she rocked up as if she was going to be there for that.
And then just started giving a speech, apparently, this is what he told us, about how the UK had funded this for refugees. Ich habe es einfach komplett aufgemacht. Und es wurde von einer freundlichen Presse berichtet, die mit ihr mitgegangen ist, als ob es wahr war. Und es war eine komplette Farce. Kein Geld aus dem UK-Gewerbe ist jemals zu diesem Thema gekommen.
Und sie haben schließlich ermittelt, dass kein Geld aus dem UK-Gewerbe jemals zu diesem Thema gekommen ist. Also dann haben wir uns gefragt, okay, wo ist das Geld? Wo ist das Geld? Es würde nicht so viel Geld kosten, um Plätze für Flüchtlinge zu bauen. Es würde nicht so viel Geld kosten, um Menschen zu präzisieren. Das UK musste bereits alle Flugzeuge für Menschen bezahlen.
Wir haben uns gefragt, wo ist all das Geld? Dann haben wir uns gefragt, wo ist all das Geld? Dann haben wir auf die Zeitung geschaut und gemerkt, dass die M23, eine unglaublich brutale Miliz, in Rwanda gebackt wurde. Es begann in den ersten Jahren. Und um 2013 wurde sie von der meisten der Welt gesandt. Es gab horrifische Massaker im Kongo.
Die Gründe dafür sind, dass nach dem Genocide in Rwanda einige der Menschen, die diesen Genocide orchestrierten, Es wurde sehr schnell gesagt, dass die meisten Menschen, die in den Kongo-Kampfen verlassen wurden, die jetzt aus Hutu-Origin sind, Kinder sind. Also waren sie sicher nicht lebendig an der Zeit des Rwandan-Genocides.
So it very quickly became that the M23 was sweeping through mostly refugee camps and areas where there were very valuable mines, clearing everybody out, committing mass rape as a weapon of war, murdering indiscriminately and then taking over mines, because Rwanda doesn't really have any of its own like coltan mines and stuff.
Let me stop you for a second, because I don't think people know what Coltan is or necessarily about this history. So for people who are not as familiar with the Rwandan genocide. So tell us briefly what that is. And then M23, this militia, decides to pursue the perpetrators of this into the Congo. But that's not exactly what worked out.
Ja, also sehr kurz. Rwanda breitet den DRC, den Kongo. Und in den Mitte 90er-Jahren gab es einen wirklich horrifischen Genocide, wo die größte ethnische Gruppe, die Hutus, die Minoritätsgruppe, die Tutsis, massakriert. Es war wirklich horrifisch. Einige der Menschen, die in den Massmördern gegen die Tutsis involviert waren, flog über die Grenze in den Kongo.
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