MAE SOT, Thailand – Chinese President Xi Jinping thanked Thailand’s visiting prime minister on Thursday for a crackdown on scam centers in Myanmar a day after Thailand cut off electricity and internet services to five hubs for the illegal operations just over its border.
As Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was meeting Xi in Beijing, a Myanmar militia allied with the junta released 61 trafficked foreigners from one of Myanmar’s major scam zones and handed them to Thai authorities over the border.
Online fraud has mushroomed in parts of Southeast Asia over recent years, often relying on workers lured by false job advertisements and forced to contact people online or by phone to trick them into putting money into fake investments.
Would-be investors have been cheated out of billions of dollars, with many perpetrators and victims believed to be from China, research groups say.
Reports about the centers have hit the headlines in recent weeks after a Chinese actor was rescued from eastern Myanmar, alarming the public across Asia and leading to a rash of tour group cancellations to Thailand and raising the prospect of economic damage.
Thai officials have also cited national security for their decision to cut electricity and internet to the enclaves in Myanmar, though they have not elaborated.
Xi thanked the visiting Thai leader for her government’s action, China’s CCTV state broadcaster reported.
“China appreciates the strong measures taken by Thailand to combat online gambling and phone and online scams”, CCTV cited Xi as saying.
“The two sides must continue to strengthen cooperation in security, law enforcement and judicial cooperation” to “protect people’s lives and property,” Xi said.
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Militia promises action
With the pressure growing, the Myanmar militia group that has overseen and profited from the fraud operations in the Myawaddy region, the Border Guard Force, or BGF, sent 61 foreign workers to Thailand on Thursday and vowed to wipe out the illegal businesses.
BGF spokesperson Lt.-Col. Naing Maung Zaw said the 61 foreigners, including some from China, were sent over a bridge across a border river from Myawaddy to the Thai town of Mae Sot.
A Thai group that helps victims of human trafficking said 39 of those released were from China, 13 from India, five from Indonesia and one from Malaysia, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Kazakhstan.
Media photographs showed Thai officials speaking to the 61, who included some women, as they sat on rows of plastic chairs. Many of them wore blue surgical masks.
Last month, BGF leaders said they had agreed with operators of the scam centers to stop forced labor and fraud, and Naing Maung Zaw repeated a promise to clean up his zone.
“At some time, we will completely destroy this scamming business. That’s what we’re working on now,” he told Radio Free Asia, adding that the utility cuts had hurt ordinary people more than the scamming gangs.
Thai Defense Minister Phumtham Wechayachai greeted the 61 as they crossed into Thailand.
“Please feel free to give us information and cooperation which will be useful for eradicating this,” Phumtham told them.
“Please inform everyone about the conditions there,” he said before the 61 were taken to an immigration facility for paperwork.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.
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