More than 1,000 people, mostly Chinese, have fled from Myanmar into Thailand this week, Thai authorities said on Friday, after the Myanmar military raided one of the country’s largest scam centres.
Sprawling cyberscam hubs, where fraudsters swindle victims through online cons, have flourished along Myanmar’s loosely governed border during its years-long civil war.
While some scammers are trafficked into the often-fortified compounds, experts say others work voluntarily, hoping to earn more in the multibillion-dollar illicit industry than they can at home.
Around 40 people who had left the KK Park scam compound, including Taiwanese and others from several African nations, took small boats across the Moei river to Thailand on Friday, local officials told AFP.
Thai security personnel waiting on the other side searched their luggage and documents while people handed over their cell phones and loaded into the back of trucks, video published by AFP showed.
Thailand’s Tak provincial office said 1,049 people had crossed from Myanmar into Mae Sot district from Wednesday to Friday morning — up from the 677 who had fled KK Park as of Thursday morning.
Nationals from India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand and more than a dozen other countries were among them, the office said in a statement.
Thailand’s Immigration Bureau said most were Chinese and men.
Myanmar’s junta said Monday it raided KK Park, located just across the border from Thailand, and seized Starlink satellite internet devices.
An AFP investigation revealed last week that the use of the devices had grown rapidly at the compounds in recent months.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which operates Starlink, said Wednesday that it had disabled more than 2,500 Starlink internet devices at Myanmar’s scam centres.
Sawanit Suriyakul Na Ayutthaya, deputy governor of Tak province, told AFP on Friday that authorities believed most of those who had entered Thailand were from KK Park, but they were still investigating.
He said Thursday that the arrivals would be screened to determine whether they were victims of human trafficking.
Otherwise, they could be prosecuted for illegal border crossing, he said.
– ‘Carrying guns’ –
Footage from public broadcaster Thai PBS on Thursday showed people using foam boxes to float across the river to Thailand.
“I was sleeping when I heard loud knocking and people shouting at us in Chinese,” a Thai woman told the broadcaster. “They were carrying guns.”
Myanmar state media said Friday that authorities “recently detained 118 foreign nationals from 14 countries who had illegally entered Myanmar through border routes… and were engaged in online gambling and scam operations” in the area of KK Park.
The Global New Light of Myanmar said some had transited through neighbouring countries, including Thailand. It did not specify when the 118 were detained.
Experts say Myanmar’s military has long turned a blind eye to scam centres which profit its militia allies, crucial collaborators in their fight against rebels.
The junta has also faced pressure to shut down scam operations from its military backer China, irked at the number of its citizens both participating in and being targeted by the scams.
But military crackdowns on scam hubs are likely token efforts organised in cahoots with allied militias in an attempt to appease China without badly denting profits, analysts say.
