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A pro-junta Myanmar militia hosting extensive online fraud operations in its zone on the Thai border has said it will deport 8,000 scam center workers, most of them Chinese, from its area as it seeks to close down illegal activities.
The vow to clean up human trafficking and online fraud comes after unprecedented pressure on the ethnic Karen force following growing international outrage about the criminal activity in its area including forced labor.
“We expect that there will be up to 8,000 people, maybe more,” said Naing Maung Zaw, a spokesman for a militia known as the Karen Border Guard Force, or BGF, which oversees scam operations in eastern Myanmar’s Myawaddy district.
“We’ll send back as many as we have – we’ve already made a list – via Thailand or back into Myanmar. According to the figures, many of them came in with Thai visas, so we have to send them back to Thailand,” he told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.
Most of them were from China, he said.
The BGF sent 61 foreigners to Thailand on Feb. 6, a day after Thailand cut cross-border power and internet services and blocked fuel exports to Myanmar scam zones. The BGF’s Myanmar junta sponsors also stopped fuel shipments to the area, residents said this week.
Another 261 foreigners from 20 countries, including China, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Nepal, Kenya and Philippines, were handed over to Thai authorities on Wednesday.
Online fraud gangs proliferated in more lawless corners of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted casinos.
The scamming, known as “pig butchering” in China, usually involves making contact with unsuspecting people online, building a relationship with them and then defrauding them. Researchers say billions of dollars have been stolen this way from victims around the world.
Huge fraud operation complexes are often staffed by people lured by false job advertisements and forced to work, sometimes under threat of violence, rescued workers and rights groups say.
China, home to many of the victims of the scams, has in recent weeks worked to spur authorities in its southern neighbors to take action against the criminal enterprises.
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In addition to the utility cuts and fuel blockade, Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, which is responsible for tackling organized crime, has sought arrest warrants for the leader of the BGF, Col. Saw Chit Thu, and two colleagues on suspicion of human trafficking, Thai media reported this week.
As the pressure has built up, BGF and its parent organization, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, or DKBA, have promised to eliminate fraud and forced labor in their area, and they have in recent days begun sending former workers across the border to Thailand
A commander of the DKBA said the days of scamming and forced labor were over and his force would focus on legitimate business.
“We plan to continue and support as much as we can businesses like housing, hotels and tourism to develop our own region,” DKBA Chief of Staff Gen. Saw San Aung told RFA.
The DKBA emerged from a split in the 1990s in Myanmar’s oldest ethnic minority guerrilla force, the largely Christian-led Karen National Union, when Buddhist fighters broke away, and sided with the military.
The military let the breakaway fighters, who called themselves the DKBA, rule in areas under government control in Kayin state. The DKBA later set up the BGF under the auspices of the army, and they have reaped profits from cross-border trade, online gambling and scam operations.
The DKBA is an important ally for the Myanmar military as it faces an onslaught from insurgent groups battling to end military rule. The DKBA intervened in April to help junta forces stop the KNU from capturing Myawaddy, a vital economic lifeline for the embattled regime.
Edited by RFA Staff.