Thai officials call on Myanmar regime to crack down on fraud, trafficking gangs on Thai-Karen State border

A high-ranking Thai military officer made a request to junta leader Sr.-Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Wednesday to take decisive action against criminal scam and trafficking operations near the Thailand-Myanmar border. The Thai army has sent a delegation of high-ranking Thai army officers, led by Lt.-Gen. Jakkapong Janpengpen, to the Myanmar regime’s administrative capital Naypyitaw in order to deliberate with junta officials. The military council reported yesterday that the Myanmar regime leader and Thai general discussed potential joint efforts to combat gangs perpetrating cyber scams and financial fraud, especially in and near the border town of Myawaddy, Karen State. The Thai military officers’ pressure adds to multiple challenges currently confronting the Myanmar military, including a similar problem with cyber scamming and trafficking gangs based in Laukkai, the administrative seat of the Kokang Self-Administered Zone (SAZ) in northern Shan State near the Chinese border. While the Operation 1027 offensive—launched two months ago by anti-junta ethnic armed organisations in northern Shan State—has effectively incapacitated some scam organisations that were active in the Kokang SAZ, the Thai government is calling for action against similar criminal activity on the Thailand-Karen State border. Scam operations and the BGF in Myawaddy Township Just as in Laukkai, foreign governments have accused the Border Guard Forces (BGF)—ethnic armed groups allied with and trained by the Myanmar military in border areas—of being deeply involved in the scam centres based in Karen State. In 2020, the Myanmar military pushed leaders of the Karen BGF who were involved in private business to quit the force. Nearly 100 high- and middle-ranking officers submitted resignation letters, but the military then urged them to reconsider shortly before seizing power in the 2021 coup. The Karen BGF has since served as a vital ally to the coup regime in Karen State, the site of frequent and intense fighting between the military and the country’s largest Karen ethnic armed organisation, the Karen National Liberation Army. Shwe Kokko, a newly developed town about 10 miles north of Myawaddy under the control of the Karen BGF, has become known worldwide as a base for criminal scam organisations. The nearby KK Park complex, a onetime gambling centre that has also become a nerve centre for online scam operations, is especially notorious. A casino inside the Shwe Kokko development project, shown in December 2019 (Myanmar Now) The scam organisations lure jobseekers from abroad by promising work in a casino, then force them to participate in schemes to defraud people online. They are able to entrap foreign workers easily due to their location on an international border. The Times of India reported in September of 2022 that criminals based in Karen State had trapped some 300 Indian computer technicians at KK Park, subjecting them to physical abuse in addition to forcing them to commit cyber fraud. More than 50 Malaysian nationals and more than 50 Sri Lankans have also been taken captive by the scam gangs in Myawaddy, as reported, respectively, by the Malaysian Humanitarian Organization (MHO) in 2022 and the Sri Lankan foreign affairs ministry in 2023. Shwe Kokko, nexus of international crime The Shwe Koko Special Economic Zone (SEZ)—a “new city” development project with heavy investment from China—covers an area of tens of thousands of acres and is home to assets estimated to be worth US $15 billion. The project was shut down during the elected National League for Democracy government, but resumed operations following the military coup of 2021, as reported in the media outlet Frontier Myanmar. The project is controlled by the Chinese-based Yatai International Holdings Group (Yatai IHG), which holds 80 percent of the shares, with 20 percent owned by the Chit Lin Myaing Company—founded by Karen BGF commander Col. Saw Chit Thu. Saw Chit Thu, a former leader of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), became a BGF commander in 2010. A casino inside the Shwe Kokko development project, shown in December 2019 (Myanmar Now) Yatai IHG, which maintained a headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, but was originally incorporated in Hong Kong, was headed by She Zhijiang, a Chinese national who acquired Cambodian citizenship in 2017. Wanted by the Chinese government since 2012 for allegedly running illegal gambling operations, he was arrested by Thai police in Bangkok in August of 2022. The governments of the United Kingdom, United States of America, and Canada have subjected She Zhijiang, Saw Chit Thu, and Saw Min Oo—the managing director of the Chit Lin Myaing company—to sanctions for their alleged involvement in cyber fraud operations based in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. Spokespersons for the Yatai International Holdings Group have denied all allegations of illegal activity by the company’s personnel, and claim to have no ties to KK Park.

Thai officials call on Myanmar regime to crack down on fraud, trafficking gangs on Thai-Karen State border

While the anti-junta forces’ Operation 1027 offensive has incapacitated scam operations in northern Shan State, the Thai government is calling for the junta to fight similar crimes in and near Myawaddy

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