PHOP PHRA (AFP) – More than 250 people rescued from online scam centres in Myanmar were handed over to Thailand yesterday, a senior Thai army official said, following a series of crackdowns on the illegal operations.
Scam compounds have mushroomed in Myanmar’s borderlands and are staffed by foreigners who are often trafficked and forced to work, swindling their compatriots in an industry analysts say is worth billions of dollars.
The group released yesterday had been working at a scam centre in Kyauk Khet, a village in Kayin state along the Thai-Myanmar border, according to the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), a Myanmar insurgent group that controls the area. After being taken by boat across a small border river, they were dropped off in Phop Phra, about 30 kilometres south of Mae Sot on the Thai side of the border, an AFP journalist saw. “There are currently 261 (people), but the final number is yet to be confirmed,” said an army commander in Mae Sot Natthakorn Rueantip.
Cyberscam compounds often lure people from the region with promises of high-paying jobs but then effectively hold them hostage and force them to commit online fraud.
In an effort to curb the illicit enterprises – which have also been linked to drug smuggling and gambling – authorities and militia groups in Myanmar and Thailand have made a show of raiding the centres before releasing and repatriating the foreigners inside.
Thai officials said the Kyauk Khet centre first appeared on the other side of the Moei River in 2019 and is still under construction. A Thai border official said that the compound is run by foreign nationals but that the workers were smuggled in from all over the world.
