10,000 cyber scam workers in Myanmar face deportation
The BGF has already sent 61 people across a border bridge to Thailand.
An ethnic militia in Myanmar said it is preparing to deport up to 10,000 people working in illegal cyber scam compounds along its border areas
STR / AFP
YANGON (AFP) — A Myanmar ethnic militia said on Saturday it was preparing to deport 10,000 people linked to cyber scams in the area it controls to Thailand as part of a crackdown on the illicit compounds.
Scam compounds have mushroomed in Myanmar’s borderlands and are staffed by foreigners who are often trafficked and forced to work, swindling people around the world in an industry analysts say is worth billions of dollars.
“We have announced to get rid of all scams from our soil. We are now implementing it,” Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) spokesperson Major Naing Maung Zaw told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Saturday.
“We have made a list and are prepared to transfer about 10,000 people (to Thailand),” he said.
The deportations would be carried out in groups of 500 per day.
The BGF has already sent 61 people across a border bridge to Thailand and are preparing to hand over “about 500 people including many different nationalities” daily, Naing Maung Zaw said.
The military task force responsible for border security in Thailand’s Tak province has coordinated with BGF leaders to receive 7,000 workers from scam compounds, Thai media reported on Saturday.
Combating cyber scams
Authorities and militia groups in Myanmar and Thailand have made a show of raiding the centers, which have also been linked to drug smuggling and gambling, before releasing and repatriating the foreigners inside.
Thailand deported 10 Chinese nationals linked to the high-profile alleged kidnapping of an actor who was rescued from a cyber fraud centre in Myanmar, Thai police told AFP on Saturday.
The suspects were part of a gang operating in Myawaddy, south of Shwe Kokko, and were allegedly involved in defrauding Chinese citizens, according to a police statement.
More than 250 foreign nationals from over a dozen countries were also rescued from an online scam center in Kyauk Khet, 50 kilometers south of Shwe Kokko, and were handed over to Thailand on Wednesday.
BGF Major General Saw Chit Thu released a statement on Thursday saying the militia were “identifying, arresting, and suppressing human traffickers and fraudsters who are illegally operating within investment projects in our region.”