A Chinese man known locally by his nickname "Muzi" was found dead in a room at the Jiangxi Grand Hotel in Manila, leaving behind a shuttered scam operation and grieving relatives searching for answers.
Muzi lived in a rented villa in Manila and managed dozens of employees running a China-targeted pig-butchering scam operation. Following his death, his entire crew of workers quickly caught wind of the news and scattered, fleeing the scene.
According to family members, the incident unfolded in the early hours of September 8. At around 1:00 AM that night, Muzi went to the Jiangxi Grand Hotel to meet a woman from Hunan named Zhang Yunfeng. Shortly after, a Hainan man named Yang Hongtong also entered the room. By 8:00 AM, the man and woman left the hotel together.
When Muzi’s family could not reach him by 2:00 AM the following morning, they checked with his driver, who told them where he had gone. Relatives rushed to the hotel room and pushed the door open to find Muzi dead on the bed, with obvious bruises circling his neck.
The family stated that a missing persons and criminal case has already been filed with police back in China, while the exact cause of death and sequence of events await local police investigation. Relatives noted they never received any ransom calls, but whether his phone and money were stolen or transferred remains to be determined by the ongoing police probe.
For locals and business owners in the area, the tragedy is just the latest headache in a volatile local scene.
