Over the past nine months, Myanmar's military government has detained more than 10,000 foreign nationals who, according to the junta, illegally entered the country to participate in online fraud, UNN reports with reference to Bloomberg.
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Of the 10,119 people detained as of October 27 during a joint operation with China and Thailand, about 9,340 have been repatriated, the Ministry of Information said on Tuesday. Work is underway to return the rest, it added.
The move came amid international pressure on the junta to dismantle multi-billion dollar fraud networks. Last month, the US sanctioned several companies in Shwe Kokko, a major fraud hub that the junta claims is controlled by an ethnic armed group linked to the junta.
Junta spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun accused the Karen National Union (KNU), an ethnic army fighting the military, of creating conditions for fraud networks to operate in KK Park near the Thai-Myanmar border. He accused KNU leaders of profiting from land leases and providing security for the gambling hub.
Padoh Saw Taw Nee, head of the KNU's foreign affairs department, said in an interview that the group denies all accusations by the junta. "They have been doing this for years for their own interests, but when the international community puts pressure on them, they try to find culprits and blame us," he said.
Local media reported that the bosses of the fraud centers left KK Park after the junta's raid last week. More than 1,000 people, mostly Chinese, fled Myanmar to Thailand, AFP reported, citing Thai authorities.
Due to internet access restrictions, fraud centers in Myanmar actively used Starlink connections. SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, said last week that it had disabled more than 2,500 Starlink devices allegedly used by cybercrime groups. Padoh Saw Taw Nee said the actual number could be higher, as the network was "widely used there."
The KNU stated that the junta's renewed fight against fraud is intended to ease pressure from China and gain Beijing's support ahead of the elections. Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has promised to hold elections in stages and transfer power, although Western governments, including the US, have dismissed this as a sham.
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Criminal networks in countries such as Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia are creating "large-scale cyber fraud and scam centers run by sophisticated transnational syndicates and interconnected networks of money launderers, human traffickers, data brokers, and a growing number of other specialized service providers and intermediaries," according to a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime this year.