Scam centres on Thai-Myanmar border thrive
Scam centres along the Thai-Myanmar border are still in operation with up to 100,000 people working there, the top police general heading a Thai crackdown said, calling for a multi-nation task force to repatriate and prosecute thousands of workers pulled out of sprawling fraud compounds.
Thailand is fronting a regional effort to dismantle scam centres along its borders, which are part of a Southeast Asian network of illegal facilities that generate billions of dollars every year, often using people trafficked there by criminal gangs, according to the United Nations.
"It could be up to 50,000 or 100,000 people that are still left because we are still seeing them operating," Police General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot said, referring to the area around the Myanmar town of Myawaddy, a major scamming hub with multiple compounds that is the centre of the ongoing crackdown.
Thatchai, the head of the Thai police's cybercrime task force and anti-human trafficking centre, said the number was based on the police intelligence as well as information gathered by Chinese authorities, who have identified at least 3,700 criminals continuing to operate there.
The scale of the ongoing scamming operations in Myawaddy have not been previously reported.
Since February, over 7,000 people have been extricated from in and around Myawaddy, most of them sent back to their home countries via Thailand, which has also cut off electricity, internet and fuel supplies to the area.
Based on early assessments, large numbers of people who were pulled out from Myawaddy went there voluntarily to find jobs, some with the scam centres and others with online gambling, said Thatchai, who is currently in charge of the Thai crackdown along the country's borders with Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.
Earlier, the Thai police said a coordination centre would be set up between Thailand and China to tackle the scam centres but Thatchai said that since there are victims from 19 countries discovered in these scam centre, a multi-national coordination centre is needed to quickly repatriate, investigate and share information on scam centres to help with prosecution of criminals involved.
