BANGKOK: More than 1,000 people, mostly Chinese, have fled from Myanmar into Thailand this week, Thai authorities said on Friday (Oct 24), 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.
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 the KK Park scam compound 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 of the arrivals 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.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/over-1000-enter-thailand-myanmar-after-scam-hub-raid-5422641
