Cyber-slavery in Philippines, food and Sweden's far-right, refugees in Mauritania
DISPATCH №55
Hello and welcome. Each week, Translator’s Dispatch brings you summaries of three compelling stories from media beyond the Anglosphere. It’s our way of helping us all read the world a little differently, to get out of our mono-lingual media bubbles. Feel free to share.
We begin with an investigation from a Danish newspaper into a cyber-scam compound in Bamban in the Philippines, at the intersection of digital fraud and modern slavery.
From Sweden, we have a fascinating investigation that explores how food has become a political weapon for the far-right, from online boosters for raw-egg masculinity to nationalist school meal policies.
And a Spanish report from Mauritania on a vast refugee camp for those who have fled Mali, which is increasingly taking on the attributes of a city.
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The cyberslaves of Bamban
A daring escape from a Philippine scam compound exposes the global system of digital fraud built on torture, corruption and modern slavery
In a joint investigation for Danish newspapers Jyllands-Posten and Politiken, journalists Thomas Foght and Sebastian Stryhn Kjeldtoft, expose the brutal machinery behind one of the world’s fastest-growing crimes: digital fraud sustained by modern slavery. The first of their reports centres on a scam compound in Bamban, a small town in the Philippines, where hundreds of trafficked workers were forced to swindle victims across the globe.
The story begins with “Danny,” a 31-year-old Vietnamese man who had been lured to the Philippines with promises of legitimate work as a chef. Instead, he found himself imprisoned inside a heavily guarded scam centre run by Chinese criminal gangs. For a month, he and hundreds of others were coerced into working long hours at computers, posing online as romantic partners, investment advisers or trusted officials. Their task was to manipulate victims into handing over money through dating scams, fake cryptocurrency schemes and other elaborate frauds. The gangsters chillingly referred to the process as “pig slaughter”: cultivate trust and affection, then drain bank accounts slice by slice.
Danny’s escape was desperate and precarious. Exploiting a lapse in guard patrols, he climbed a wall, tore through barbed wire and fled into the night. Running through woods and along a river to hide his tracks, he reached a farm owned by a Filipino-American retired US Air Force officer. Others who had attempted escape before him had reportedly been returned by corrupt police. This time, the farmer sheltered him and connected him with a priest, who in turn contacted the Philippine government’s anti-cybercrime task force, PAOCC.
Winston Casio, a senior officer with PAOCC, led the rescue. The operation nearly collapsed when another armed police chief arrived, allegedly carrying authorisation to shoot Danny if necessary. Casio succeeded in extracting the witness just before the situation escalated, later securing a search warrant based on his testimony. That testimony made Danny the key witness in a case that would shock the Philippines and reverberate across East Asia.
When authorities raided the Bamban compound, they discovered 680 enslaved workers from more than 20 countries. Many had been recruited via social media with promises of high-paying jobs. Instead, their passports were confiscated, and they were forced to commit fraud under threat of torture or death. Survivors described brutal punishments for underperformance or resistance. According to investigators, some victims who died were dismembered and disposed of in Manila.
The compound itself was staggering in scale, the journalists report. It towered over Bamban’s modest homes and had fuelled a local economic boom. Locals helped construct mansions for the gang leaders and found work in what they believed was an online casino operation. Inside were lavish residences with gold furnishings, a wine cellar worth millions, an Olympic-sized pool, and luxury vehicles. Just beyond the compound walls stood the mayor’s office.
The scandal deepened when evidence linked the town’s mayor, Alice Guo, to the property. She was later arrested in Indonesia, extradited, and sentenced to life imprisonment for human trafficking. Courts determined she had falsified her Filipino identity and was in fact from China, prompting further political and intelligence concerns.
The investigation also reveals the global dimension of cyber slavery. According to Danish authorities, cybercrime victims in Denmark alone increased by nearly 100,000 in one year. Yet the crimes often involve small sums and cross-border networks, making prosecution difficult. Scam centres have proliferated not only in Southeast Asia but increasingly in Africa, South America and Europe, often operating in collusion with corrupt officials.
Following the Bamban raid, the Philippines deported 100 Chinese suspects back to Shanghai in cooperation with Chinese authorities. Whether they were trafficked victims or willing perpetrators remains unclear, but in China they are presumed criminals until proven otherwise.
[If you found this article interesting, might also find interesting ‘The rescue that never came’, in Translator magazine issue #1, translated from Initium Media, about cyber-scam compounds in Cambodia]
The original article by Thomas Foght and Sebastian Stryhn Kjeldtoft, ‘Tusindvis af mennesker blev holdt som slaver på svindelcentret i Bamban. Kom med Politiken og Jyllands-Posten tilbage til gerningsstedet,’ was published in Danish on 21 December 2025 on Politiken.
It available here.
Politiken and Jyllands-Posten are Danish newspapers. Both are published by the media group, JP/Politikens Hus A/S.
Summary by ZN
Protein, pork and power
How food culture is being weaponised by the far right, from raw-egg masculinity to nationalist school meal policies in Sweden
In Sweden’s anti-racist publication Expo, journalist Jenny Damberg traces how food has become a political battleground in the country. Across two features – ‘Egg White Diet’ and ‘School Food Nationalism’ – Damberg explores how diet, masculinity, race and national identity are increasingly fused in far-right ideology.
The first article investigates the subculture surrounding British far-right influencer Charles Cornish-Dale, known online as Raw Egg Nationalist (REN). Cornish-Dale promotes the consumption of extreme quantities of raw eggs, unpasteurised milk and offal, sometimes suggesting 12 to 36 eggs a day, as part of a broader political project to strengthen “white nations.” His rhetoric blends bodybuilding culture with white nationalist conspiracy thinking. Protein becomes more than nutrition; it is framed as civilisational defence.
Damberg situates REN within a wider digital ecosystem of “protein activists” who combine caveman aesthetics, anti-globalist ideology and hypermasculine grievance. Industrial food systems, soy products, seed oils and vegetarianism are portrayed as tools of a corrupt global elite allegedly intent on weakening Western men. In this worldview, eating meat, particularly red meat and animal fats, signals virility, racial strength and resistance. Vegetarians are mocked as emasculated “soy boys,” while insects, promoted in sustainability debates, are cast as dystopian symbols of elite control, linked rhetorically to the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset.”
The article connects these narratives to broader anxieties about bodily decline and loss of control in the wake of the pandemic, economic instability and political polarisation. Dutch researcher Ruben Stoffelen notes that focusing on one’s physique through strict diet and exercise offers them a sense of salvaged agency. Yet Damberg underscores the risks: excessive meat consumption carries health consequences, and unpasteurised milk can spread infection. What masquerades as ancestral authenticity is, she suggests, a highly modern political performance.
The second article shifts from fringe subcultures to municipal policy. In several Swedish municipalities governed with support from the Sweden Democrats (SD), school meal guidelines have been revised to promote “Swedish home cooking.” In practice, this often means increasing the frequency of pork dishes while eliminating alternatives for students who avoid pork for religious reasons. A vegetarian option remains, satisfying legal requirements, but specific accommodations have been removed. Damberg shows how these changes function symbolically. Pork, a food prohibited in Judaism and Islam, becomes a marker of belonging. Jonatan Leer, professor of food studies, argues that insisting on “pork or nothing” signals a political stance on migration and integration. The debate echoes Denmark’s earlier “meatballgate” controversy and fits within what sociologist Michaela DeSoucey terms “gastronationalism,” the use of food to define and defend national identity.
Damberg also notes the practical consequences. In Uddevalla, food waste reportedly increased after policy changes, and replacing vegetarian or poultry options with pork has raised costs in some municipalities. Meanwhile, national dietary guidelines from the Swedish Food Agency recommend reducing red meat for health and climate reasons. The increase in the use of pork cut against scientific advice.
Taken together, the two articles reveal how food operates simultaneously at the level of the body and the state. Online, raw eggs and red meat become symbols of racial revival. In schools, pork becomes a tool for signalling who fully belongs.
The original articles by Jenny Damberg, ‘Äggstrem diet’ and ‘Skolmatsnationalism’ were first published in Swedish on May 23, 2025 on Expo.
They are available here and here.
Expo is a Swedish anti-racist magazine founded in 1995 by journalist and author Stieg Larsson. It is published by the non-profit Expo Foundation (Stiftelsen Expo) and focuses on investigative journalism about nationalist, racist, anti-democratic, antisemitic and far-right movements and organisations.
Summary by ZN
The desert city holding back a war
In Mauritania’s far southeast, a refugee camp of nearly 300,000 people has become both sanctuary and buffer zone between Mali’s collapse and Europe’s borders
Reporting from the edge of the Sahara, journalist Martín Mucha in El Mundo traces the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Mbera, a refugee camp in southeastern Mauritania that now resembles a city. Built among dunes just kilometres from the Malian border, it shelters families fleeing a country crumbling under jihadist siege and geopolitical neglect.
Around 136,000 people live inside the camp, with another 154,000 or more scattered in surrounding settlements. If counted as a city, it would be among Mauritania’s most populous, second only to the capital, Nouakchott.
They arrive from a Mali described as “bleeding itself dry.” The jihadist coalition JNIM, linked to Al Qaeda, has tightened its grip, blockading fuel and isolating Bamako. Russian mercenary forces, successors to the Wagner Group under the rebranded Africa Corps, add another layer of violence. Civilians are caught between rival armed actors, their villages emptied by executions, rape, mutilation and extortion. “One day some killed part of my family; then others came and finished off the rest,” one woman recounts. Another, whose husband was executed, stares at the floor as if willing him back to life.
Despite its harshness, Mbera offers relative safety. It has eight schools, four health centres, a market of 500 stalls, banks, hair salons, and even high-speed internet via Starlink. UN agencies are planning its transformation into a permanent city, with roads, electricity grids and improved water systems. For some long-term residents, it already is home. For others, it is a pause.
That pause is politically charged. “If Mbera didn’t exist, the newcomers would go straight to the coast, trying to reach Europe,” a tribal leader tells Mucha. Mauritania, sparsely populated and strategically positioned, has become a buffer state. The European Union, represented by Ambassador Joaquín Tasso Vilallonga, openly supports Nouakchott with funding aimed at stabilising refugee flows, strengthening vocational training, and combating trafficking. The policy has had measurable impact: arrivals to the Canary Islands via the Western African route have dropped sharply compared with previous peaks.
Mauritania’s president, Mohamed Ould El Ghazouani, praised in Western capitals for keeping jihadist movements at bay, governs with a firm hand in a country where corruption remains endemic. Spain and the EU have funded detention centres for migrants and invested hundreds of millions of euros in migration control infrastructure. Human rights organisations question the trade-offs, while Spain’s domestic political partners demand transparency.
Migration, Mucha suggests, is driven by more than hunger or bullets. Social media fuels dreams of an El Dorado abroad. TikTok and WhatsApp circulate filtered visions of Europe, shaping aspirations among young refugees. The story of a 22-year-old Mauritanian man hospitalised after his emigration attempt failed underscores the psychological toll of dashed hopes. In Mali, influencers themselves become targets; one content creator with 150,000 followers was executed by jihadists in Timbuktu.
Mucha’s six days end with departure at dawn, planes shrinking on the horizon. Mbera stands as a barrier between civil war and Europe’s shores.
The original article by Martin Mucha, ‘Entramos en Mbera, el superpoblado campo de refugiados en medio del desierto que va camino de ser metrópoli: “Huimos escapando de la muerte, las violaciones y la deshonra”’ was published in Spanish on November 15, 2025, on El Mundo.
It available here.
El Mundo is a major Spanish national daily newspaper based in Madrid, Spain.
Summary by ZN
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