YANGON: Myanmar’s decision coup said Tuesday it had deported to China more than 50,000 people suspected of participation in online fraud businesses since October 2023, as it made a rare visit to neighbouring countries to act.
Scam materials have mushroomed in Myanmar’s borders and are staffed by immigrants who are often trafficked and forced to work, swindling their colleagues in an industry experts say is for billions of dollars.
An editor published in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar news Tuesday detailed the level of the legal activities– including virtual scams and gambling– formally for the first time.
It said the coup had caught and deported over 55,000 immigrants involved in borders schemes to their home states since October 2023, over 53,000 of them to China.
The second-largest dependent– over a thousand people– was from Vietnam, followed by Thailand with above 600. The sleep came from around 25 different states, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar.
The post added those responsible were not Myanmar citizens or regular foreign residents but “fugitive violators” who illegally entered Myanmar from neighbouring nations.
The junta called on its neighbours to “participate in combating online scams and online gambling”.
AFP has contacted Thai and Chinese authorities for comment.
Myanmar’s northern border with China was previously a hotbed for online scam centres often run by militias aligned with the ruling junta.
But a sweeping offensive by an alliance of ethnic rebels cleared many of the scam centres out.
Local Myanmar media have reported that scam bosses who escaped the offensive have since set up shop further south along the border with Thailand.
Myanmar’s junta and Thai military officials have agreed to” jointly eradicate online gambling and online scams”, according to Myanmar state media.
Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, on Friday called the compounds “one of the most pressing regional crises the region is facing”.
The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the military junta ousted democratically elected civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi from office in a 2021 coup.
