Junta-allied Karen border guard force holds prayer ceremony for alleged scam kingpin

The commander of the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) gathered hundreds of participants in Myawaddy Township, Karen State on Monday to pray for a notorious fugitive wanted for his alleged involvement in sprawling online fraud and human trafficking operations. The kingpin honoured at the ceremony, She Zhijiang, is a prominent Chinese-Cambodian businessman and key investor in the Shwe Kokko new city development project, a town-sized hotel and casino complex some 12 miles north of Myawaddy. Accused of labour trafficking and operating illegal businesses, She Zhijiang is currently in Thai police custody and resisting extradition to China, his home country. The Karen BGF’s elaborate prayer ceremony was broadcast on August 11 on Facebook, and led by the group’s commander, Col. Saw Chit Thu. Attendees wore matching uniforms with the phrase “Prayer Ceremony for Mr. She Zhijiang” printed on them in Chinese and Burmese. Participants in the proceedings sent prayers and good wishes, wrote prayer notes, released white doves, and made offerings to the Buddhist monks who were in attendance. Banners in Chinese and Burmese, expressing hope for She Zhijiang's safety, health, and swift return to Shwe Kokko, were displayed on the stage where the prayer ceremony took place. Karen BGF chose to hold the ceremony in Shwe Kokko, was one of several new gambling sites in Myanmar that attracted Chinese investment in 2019 when the government of Cambodia began to crack down on illegal gambling within its borders, forcing the investors to look elsewhere. Over the next few years, Shwe Kokko became a notorious hub for online criminal scam and labour trafficking operations, which operated by luring jobseekers from various neighbouring countries with promises of legitimate employment, then coercing them to take part in internet-based schemes defrauding people of their money. Seeking more information about the prayer ceremony in Shwe Kokko, Myanmar Now tried to contact Saw Chit Thu and Karen BGF spokesperson Maj. Naing Maung Zaw, but was unable to reach them. International monitoring organisations revealed in April and May that Karen BGF leaders and their families had profited substantially from their involvement in criminal activities, including the illegal gambling and online scam operations based in sites like Shwe Kokko. Such sites continue to thrive in Karen State even as ethnic armed groups have cracked down on them in other areas of the country such as the Kokang region on the China-Myanmar border. Responding to the crackdown in the Kokang region in northern Shan State, online scammers who had been operating there relocated in large numbers to Myawaddy and Shwe Kokko, located in territory controlled by the Karen BGF in Karen State. According to an April 22 report by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the Karen BGF earns revenues totalling an estimated US $192 million each year by protecting and overseeing the gambling and scam centres in the territory they control. Some 50 percent of these revenues are turned over to the Myanmar military, according to the same USIP report, which also claimed that high-ranking BGF officials including Saw Chit Thu, Lt-Col Saw Maw Tho (or Saw Mout Thone), and Maj. Tin Win were directly involved in scam operations that targeted victims in English-speaking countries. Justice For Myanmar, another monitoring group, reported that Karen BGF officials not only provided security and protection for the criminal gambling and scam centres, but also invested directly in businesses that profited from them, with Saw Chit Thu and his children owning about half of the Karen BGF’s businesses. While acknowledging the ongoing presence of scam centres in Karen BGF-controlled territory, Saw Chit Thu has denied allegations that the Karen BGF or anyone in his family are profiting from them. Speaking to Myanmar Now in May, Saw Chit Thu said that the allegations against the Karen BGF and its members were fabricated by people who resented the group’s neutrality during an offensive led by the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) targeting junta forces in Myawaddy the previous month. “I personally issued a directive that set a six-month period for all foreigners working in our area to return to where they came from,” Saw Chit Thu said, referring to the workers staffing the scam centres. “However, people made various accusations against us without waiting to see what would happen over those six months.” BGF leader Saw Chit Thu attending the prayer ceremony for She Zhijiang. (Photo: Facebook “Mar Htu Rah”) The BGF, which changed its name to the “Karen National Army” (KNA) in March of this year, was formerly an independent, predominantly Karen Buddhist ethnic armed organisation that broke away from the KNLA in 1994, not long before the Myanmar army absorbed it and reconfigured it as a border guard force under the military’s command. The ”KNA” rebrand was widely seen as an attempt by the group to distance itself from the military, but KNLA sources claimed the Karen BGF/KNA later helped military forces recapture a battalion base in Myawaddy that the KNLA had seized, and thereby retake control of the town. The group has continued to wear Karen BGF insignia since rebranding. She Zhijiang, the investor honoured by the Karen BGF at the prayer ceremony, is wanted by the Chinese government for his extensive alleged involvement in illegal gambling, scams, and human trafficking in various countries. However, he appealed an earlier attempt by Thai authorities, who have held him since August 2022, to deport him to China.

Junta-allied Karen border guard force holds prayer ceremony for alleged scam kingpin

Gathering monks and locals for the ritual, BGF chief Col. Saw Chit Thu prayed for the good health of a Chinese-Cambodian businessman accused of launching international criminal operations in Karen State and elsewhere

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