Hundreds of foreigners freed from Myanmar’s scam centres

An cultural armed group has released more than 250 citizens from 20 countries who had been employed in telecoms fraud centers in Myanmar’s Karen State and brought to Thailand.

They are being evaluated to determine whether they were victims of mortal trafficking after being received by the Thai troops.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the prime minister of Thailand, met with Taiwanese leader Xi Jinping last week and agreed to stop the fraud factories that have erupted along the Thai-Myanmar border.

In an effort to stop con artists from using Thailand as a transport state for workers and funds, her state has tightened banks and card regulations and restricted access to power and energy from the Thai side of the border.

For the past two decades, some opposition MPs in Thailand have been pushing for this kind of behavior.

Foreign workers are typically persuaded to these connoisseurs’ scams by promising pay or being duped into believing they will work in Thailand rather than Myanmar.

The scammers look for employees with abilities in the language of the people who are intended for cyber-fraud, typically in English and Chinese.

They are pressed into conducting virtual criminal activity, ranging from like schemes known as “pig killing” and blockchain scams, to money laundering and improper playing.

Some people agree to the work, but others are forced to stay, with their release only possible after their families receive large ransoms. Some of the escapees have described being tortured.

One of the several armed groups that controls territory inside Karen State, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, DKBA, handed over the released foreign workers.

These armed organizations have been accused of permitting the scam compounds to operate under their control and of tolerating the widespread abuse of trafficking victims who are forced to work in the facilities.

Since gaining independence in 1948, the Myanmar government has struggled to extend its influence over large portions of Karen State.

On Tuesday, Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, which is similar to the US FBI, requested arrest warrants for three commanders of another armed group known as the Karen National Army.

Saw Chit Thu, the Karen warlord who signed a contract in 2017 with a Chinese company to build Shwe Kokko, a new city rumored to be largely funded by scams, was named one of the warrants.

Yatai, the company that built the city, invited the BBC to visit Shwe Kokko.

Yatai claims Shwe Kokko has stopped a number of scams. It has put up huge billboards all over town proclaiming, in Chinese, Burmese and English, that forced labour is not allowed, and that “online businesses” should leave.

However, locals informed us that the scam business was still operating, and they contacted us about it.

Like the DKBA, Saw Chit Thu broke away from the main Karen insurgent group, the KNU, in 1994, and allied himself to the Myanmar military.

Both Saw Chit Thu and the DKBA have stated that they are expelling the swindling companies from their territories despite pressure from Thailand and China.

The DKBA commander reached out to a Thai member of parliament on Tuesday to arrange the transfer of the 260 workers.

They included 221 men and 39 women, from Ethiopia, Kenya, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Nepal, Uganda, Laos, Burundi, Brazil, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Tanzania, Sir Lanka, India, Ghana and Cambodia.