{"id":68916,"date":"2025-01-14T13:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T04:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jan\/14\/wang-xing-chinese-actor-abduction-thailand-myanmar-scam-ntwnfb"},"modified":"2025-01-14T13:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T04:22:10","slug":"a-kidnapped-chinese-actor-a-scam-gang-and-a-very-public-rescue-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=68916","title":{"rendered":"A kidnapped Chinese actor, a scam gang, and a very public rescue operation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wang Xing was abducted in Thailand by increasingly bold crime gangs operating in Myanmar, putting an entire tourism industry at risk<\/p>\n<p>Wang Xing thought he was travelling to a casting call with film producers in Thailand.<\/p>\n<p>The 22-year-old Chinese actor, also known by his stage name Xing Xing, had been communicating on WeChat with people he believed were Chinese employees of a major Thai entertainment firm, according to Thai police. One of them greeted him at Bangkok\u2019s Suvarnabhumi airport and led him through security, before telling him that the plan \u2013 to stay at a nearby hotel \u2013 had changed. Instead they drove 500km to Mae Sot in western Thailand.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jan\/14\/wang-xing-chinese-actor-abduction-thailand-myanmar-scam-ntwnfb\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wang Xing was abducted in Thailand by increasingly bold crime gangs operating in Myanmar, putting an entire tourism industry at riskWang Xing thought he was travelling to a casting call with film producers in Thailand.The 22-year-old Chinese actor, als&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1714,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,82,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-myanmar","category-thailand"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1714"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68917,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68916\/revisions\/68917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}