This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now being reprinted with permission.
In response to stories of a coming crackdown by the government, Chinese fraud groups in eastern Myanmar’s Kayin state are moving the unusual trafficking survivors they use to a game in an ethnic rebel-controlled area.
Fraud centers have  , plagued the border , places of Thailand, Myanmar and China as citizens from all three countries are tricked into – and consequently enslaved in – online scams.
Trafficked employees are typically forced by the companies to call people all over Asia to persuade them to put money into fake or fraudulent investments.
In 2023, junta and , rebel army officials deported tens of thousands from Myanmar for the criminal schemes. Many are connected to money laundering, human trafficking, and forced labor, which increased after COVID- 19 shut down casinos across Southeast Asia.
Following the arrests and raids of money-laundering gangs in Shan state’s Laukkai along the border with China in January, rumors surfaced about a potential crackdown by Myanmar’s junta and Thai authorities on casinos along the Thai border.
Earlier this month,  , more than 800 Chinese nationals were deported , from Myawaddy township’s infamous gambling and scam center, Shwe Kokko, in Myanmar’s Kayin state, in relation to online fraud.
Casino employees in a Democratic Karen Benevolent Army-controlled area south of Myawaddy reported to RFA Burmese that Chinese fraud gangs are now transferring the captive foreign workers they rely on to run their operations to the Kyaukkhet Casino, also known as the Ko Sai Casino, locking them up and demanding exorbitant ransom payments to get them released.
” If you want to be released, if you want to go back home, they will threaten and demand 200, 000- 300, 000 baht ( US$ 5, 500- 8, 250 )”, said one worker who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.  ,
” They have to work and pay it back – that’s the only way”, he said.
An investigation by RFA found that up to 3, 000 foreign nationals are being held at the casino, including people from Thailand, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Ethiopia and Uganda.
Escapees tortured
A casino worker informed RFA that anyone who is captured while attempting to flee the scamming gangs is subjected to brutal beatings in front of other captives.
” Last month, there were people who ran away but were caught”, he said. I could n’t bear what they did to them because it was too much. They tasered them and made them crawl upside down like scorpions to torture them. There were even fatalities from it.
The casino worker claimed that the majority of the captives were” Chinese supervisors who also speak Burmese.”
The 16 Lao trafficking victims in captivity pleaded with authorities to “help us escape from the hellhole as soon as possible, because if we fail to earn money for our Chinese captors, we’ll be tortured once more,” according to a source at the casino.
The Lao victim’s parent reported to RFA that their son had informed them that he and others would be freed on March 3, but the day passed without any news.
RFA was informed by a representative from the Lao Embassy in Myanmar that junta officials were “working on the case” and urged anyone with information to share their identities and locations.
RFA’s unsuccessful attempts to contact the Kyaukkhet Casino’s owners were unsuccessful.
No knowledge
Col. According to Raw Sein Win, a spokesman for the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army ( DKBA ), his organization was unaware of the casino’s organized crime.
Sein Win claimed that the owners of the Kyaukkhet Casino must “pay fees to other armed groups around here, otherwise they will be in trouble” despite the fact that it is located in DKBA-controlled territory.
The largest rebel group in the area, the ethnic Karen National Union, or KNU, was previously allied with the junta, according to him, along with the military and the Border Guard Force, which were all linked to the casino.
Saw Sein Win claims that the DKBA was unaware that casinogoers had been trafficked to and enslaved there.
He claimed that there have been numerous instances of human trafficking and sales there brought to us by foreign embassies. ” In those cases, we tried to verify the names and look for and rescue them. As far as I know, we only leased the land, so we are not that deeply involved in their]casino ] operations”.
Sein Win claimed that the DKBA has never entered the casino or ever required anything from its owners, including paying taxes or receiving any portion of the money they make. He said the casino owners are “doing their own thing with their own ]security ]”.
” Although publicly these properties are in the DKBA area, as far as I know ,]the Chinese casino owners ] made deals with other groups”, he said. ” If the junta’s army wants money, they go there. So do the other armed groups. All of them request payment from the Chinese owners.
Residents of the area where the Kyaukkhet Casino is located claim that no clashes, airstrikes, or raids have occurred while fighting between Myanmar’s military and the KNU’s armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army, has raged on a nearly daily basis in the area of Myawaddy since February.
