Despite reports of more people being freed, thousands remain at risk in compounds in Myanmar or even on the Thai border if their governments do not act. Analysts note that some Chinese citizens voluntarily work in online scams. Myanmar’s military and allied militias are out of sync with China because shutting down the centres would mean giving up an important source of income.

Myawaddy (AsiaNews) – More than 7 ,000 people victims of scam centres in Myanmar have been rescued in recent days thanks to cooperation between China, Thailand, and some of Myanmar’s ethnic militias.

About 200 Chinese nationals have already been repatriated, while more are currently being held by the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), an ethnic militia now aligned with Myanmar’s military, on the border between Myanmar and Thailand.

The BGF has long controlled a large swathe of Karen State, including Myawaddy district, where various illegal trafficking take place, protected by Myanmar’s army. In recent years, the military has in fact turned a blind eye in exchange for regular bribes and profit sharing.

Today the BGF wrote on X that they are holding 7,141 people of 29 different nationalities (including 4,860 Chinese) who will be repatriated only when the various foreign embassies submit a request.

This is ostensibly the reason for the delays in releasing workers to Thai authorities from so-called scam centres. But the statement makes it abundantly clear that, except for Asian governments actively working to free their citizens nationals, many foreigners risk being sent back to work in online scams.

At the start of this month, 260 people, half from Ethiopia, were rescued by the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (another ethnic militia close to the military but opposed to the BGF) and moved to Thailand.

Some victims spoke to The Guardian about the abuse they endured in captivity.

“The Chinese would shock me with electric probes almost daily. I endured this continuously for nine months,” said a 27-year-old woman.

A 24-year-old Pakistani explained that he flew to Bangkok with the promise of an IT job, but his cell phone and passport were seized during what was supposed to be a job interview, and was eventually taken to an online scam centre in Myanmar.

“Later they sold me to another compound for ,000, saying I wasn’t working well,” he said. “They exchanged money right in front of me,” adding that while his persecutors were Chinese, enslaved workers were forced to beat their colleagues if they failed to earn at least 10 ,000 dollars a day through online scams.

If this is multiplied by the number of people who are thought to be involved in online scam centres across Southeast Asia (at least 200,000), one gets an idea of the amount of illegal money generated in the region, $US 80 billion a year, probably more than illegal drug trafficking.

Although more and more enslaved workers are reportedly freed, especially in Myanmar, an analyst interviewed by AsiaNews who prefers to remain anonymous, says that China has been trying hard to rack down on this business.

In the pre-COVID period, Chinese authorities focused on online gambling (banned in China) and Cambodia. Eventually online scam centres shifted to Myanmar, aided by the country’s civil war.

The analyst notes that, unlike the pre-COVID period, international involvement has increased in this business and many Chinese nationals are voluntarily choosing to work at online scam centres because they expect to make easy money quick, a trend favoured by the slowdown of the Chinese economy and growing youth unemployment in China.

“This does not mean that it is not forced labour," the source said. In some cases, Western engineers have also worked at online scam centres to develop sophisticated computer applications and systems.

Some local observers suggest that the BGF and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) are trying to downplay the issue as one of human trafficking, when in fact the militias, Myanmar’s military, and Chinese criminal groups have been working together and sharing profits for some time.

As more Chinese nationals go home, groups running online scam centres are recruiting Mandarin-speaking Myanmar citizens from Kokang in the northern Shan State, a region bordering China where fighting between the country’s army and resistance forces has intensified over the past year.

“So, as Chinese are sent out, they can be replaced by Chinese-speaking Burmese. They don’t need to live on the compound and are free. Thus, the compounds won’t be shut down,” an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter told The Diplomat magazine.

Today for Beijing the easiest way to put a stop to these operations (mostly run by Chinese bosses who in many cases hold Thai or Cambodian citizenship) is to put pressure on the Thai government, since the Myanmar military has been weakened by the civil war and proved incapable of solving the problem, despite prodding from Beijing, which militarily supports the military junta.

A day after Thai authorities cut off power supply to online scam centres in Myanmar, Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra travelled to Beijing to sign a memorandum of understanding that provides, among other things, for the implementation of several infrastructure projects part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The situation is proving complicated for Myanmar’s military as well, which often runs trafficking in the regions bordering Thailand in partnership with allied ethnic militias.

A few weeks before the coup d'état that plunged Myanmar into civil war in 2021, when the government was still led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the ethnic Karen BGF signed a deal with Myanmar’s military to continue managing their affairs undisturbed.

The Karen BGF is led by Colonel San Myint, better known as Saw Chit Thu. In recent days, Thailand's Department of Special Investigations (DSI), again probably under Chinese pressure, requested an arrest warrant against him, which has yet to be issued by a court.

In 1994 San Myint split from the predominantly Christian Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) to form the DKBA, which later joined the ranks of the Myanmar Army as the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), renamed the Karen National Army (KNA) last year in the hitherto unsuccessful attempt to distance itself from the military, which is why so many continue to refer to the group as BGF to emphasise its continued ties with Myanmar’s military junta.

San Myint remains the militia’s leader, but that is not all: Together with his children and partners Saw Mote Thone and Saw Tin Win (who are also wanted by Thailand’s DSI), he controls at least five companies that have prospered since the outbreak of civil war in Myanmar in February 2021.

San Myint’s businesses include construction companies that built the online scam centres in Shwe Kokko and Myawaddy (oftentimes tall buildings surrounded by barbed wire; in other cases, hotels and casinos where enslaved scammers are kept hidden), but also companies that who have signed contracts with Thailand to provide electricity to online scam centres.

According to several sources, there are at least 10 compounds in Myawaddy, while in Shwe Kokko, about 20 kilometres further north, at least 20 ,000 Chinese nationals are engaged in phishing or "pig-butchering" operations (inducing victims to invest in fraudulent financial schemes).

However, the analyst interviewed by AsiaNews points out that Saw Chit Thu is locally hailed as an important military and religious leader, because part of the profits from online scam centres are reinvested for the development of local communities.

Religious gatherings have even been held in Myawaddy in honour of She Zhijiang, an associate of Saw Chit Thu, who was arrested in Thailand in 2022 and is currently in prison in Bangkok awaiting extradition to China.

At the start of this month, when Thailand cut off power to Myawaddy and Shwe Kokko, people in Myanmar took to the streets to protest, crossing the friendship bridges that connect their country to Thailand.

For their part, criminal organisations are moving further into Myanmar to escape Thailand’s clampdown.

At the same time, operations may move back to Cambodia, where they enjoy the protection of the Cambodian regime and where it would be harder for China to intervene due to its various strategic interests in that country, like the Ream naval base.

It is no coincidence that Liu Zhongyi, China’s Minister of State for Public Security in charge of leading the repression of scam centres, visited Cambodia yesterday with a large delegation of experts and diplomats.

• china
• thailand
• myanmar
• online scam centres
• slavery
• fraud
• crackdown
• human trafficking