Hundreds of foreigners released from the scam centers of Myanmar

More than 250 people from 20 nationalities who had been working in telecommunications fraud centers in the state of Karen de Myanmar have been released by an ethnic armed group and brought to Thailand.

The workers, more than half of which were from African or Asian nations, were received by the Thai army, and are being evaluated to find out if they were victims of human trafficking.

Last week, Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and promised to close the scam centers that have proliferated along the border of Thai-Myanmar.

His government has stopped access to energy and fuel on the Thai side of the border, and the banking and visa rules hardened to try to prevent scam operators from using Thailand as a transit country to move workers and effective.

Some opposition parliamentarians in Thailand have been pressing for this type of action during the last two years.

Foreign workers are usually attracted to these scam centers through offers of good salaries, or in some cases deceived to think that they will do a different job in Thailand, not in Myanmar.

Scammers are looking for workers with skills in the languages ​​of those who are subject to cyber fever, generally English and Chinese.

They are pressed to perform online criminal activities, ranging from love scams known as “Pork Carnage” and cryptographic fraud, to money laundering and illegal gambling.

Some are willing to do the job, but others are forced to stay, with liberation only possible if their families pay great bailouts. Some of those who have escaped have described being tortured.

Foreign workers released were delivered by the Democratic Army Karen Benevolent, DKBA, one of several armed factions that control the territory within the state of Karen.

These armed groups have been accused of allowing scam compounds to operate under their protection, and to tolerate the generalized abuse of trafficking victims who are forced to work on compounds.

The Myanmar government has not been able to extend its control over much of Karen’s state since Independence in 1948.

On Tuesday, the Thailand Special Research Department, which is similar to the FBI of the United States, requested arrest orders for three commanders from another armed group known as the Karen National Army.

The arrest orders included Saw Chit Thu, the Lord of the Karen War that reached an agreement in 2017 with a Chinese company to build Shwe Kokko, a new city that is believed to be financed to a large extent by scams.

The BBC visited Shwe Kokko at Yatai invitationThe company that built the city.

Yatai says there are no more scams in Shwe Kokko. He has placed huge advertising fences throughout the city they proclaim, in Chinese, Burmese and English, that forced labor is not allowed, and that “online companies” should leave.

But local people told us that the scam business was still working and interviewed a worker who had been employed in one.

Like the DKBA, he saw Chit Thu separated from the main group of Karen Insurgent, the Knu, in 1994, and allied the Myanmar army.

Under the pressure of Thailand and China, both saw Chit Thu and the DKBA have said they are expelling the scam businesses from their territories.

DKBA commander contacted a member of the Thai Parliament on Tuesday to organize the delivery of the 260 workers.

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