China’s Assistant Public Security Minister Liu Zhongyi met with victims rescued from scam compounds in Karen State’s Myawaddy on the border with Thailand on Monday, ahead of their repatriation.
Lui was joined by Myanmar junta deputy home affairs minister Major-General Aung Kyaw Kyaw and a Thai general, as the three countries ramped up their border scam crackdown.
The scam compounds operate in territory controlled by the junta-allied Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), led by Saw Chit Thu. While Thailand is currently preparing arrest warrants for Saw Chit Thu and two other BGF leaders behind the Myawaddy scam syndicates, the junta has yet to say how it will handle the militia warlord.
Prior to his Myawaddy visit, Lui met separately in Naypyitaw with Foreign Minister Than Swe and Home Affairs Minister General Tun Tun Naung to discuss the scam crackdown, victim repatriation, transfer of suspects wanted by China, and high-level meetings between China, Myanmar and Thailand. The talks followed his trip to the Thai border town of Mae Sot, opposite Myawaddy, for anti-scam discussions in late January
On Sunday, he returned to Mae Sot to observe preparations for the repatriation of Chinese citizens and other foreigners. He crossed the border to Myawaddy on Monday to observe the victim-verification process and hold repatriation talks with Thai and Myanmar officials, junta media reported.
The junta claims it has rounded up 1,030 undocumented migrants at Myawaddy’s KK Park and Shwe Kokko scam hubs since Jan. 30. Sixty-one have so far been transferred to Thailand.
The Chinese Embassy in Yangon issued a statement on Sunday announcing that China and Myanmar had agreed to strengthen security cooperation. It added that the junta had declared it attaches great importance to cracking down on criminal acts such as online gambling and telecom fraud.
Meanwhile, the BGF has declared its own scam “crackdown”, raiding compounds in Myawaddy as Liu visited Naypyitaw on Friday.
The BGF says it will transfer some 10,000 foreign nationals from Shwe Kokko to Thailand’s Mae Sot across the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge No. 2 at a rate of 500 per day.
The Myawaddy scam hubs fall under the jurisdiction of the Karen BGF, a junta ally now rebranded as the Karen national Army.
However, the junta has sought to distance itself from the border scams after they made international headlines last month. As China ramped up pressure for a crackdown, the regime pointed the finger at Thailand, blaming a “neighboring country” for supplying the scam syndicates with electricity, internet and weapons.
Feb. 17 editions of junta-controlled newspapers quoted victims rescued from the scam centers as saying they had been trafficked from Thailand to Myanmar.
Earlier this month, Thailand cut off electricity and fuel supplies to five Myanmar border zones, targeting scam compounds.
Scam centers have thrived for years in Myawaddy’s Shwe Kokko, where their numbers swelled after a joint crackdown by China and the regime in northern Shan State in late 2023 and early 2024 forced syndicates to relocate to the border town.
Shwe Kokko, a new city project notorious for online fraud and human trafficking, is operated by the BGF’s Saw Chit Thu.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra discussed border scam operations with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to Beijing in early February.
Before Liu’s visit, the junta sent Transport Minister Mya Tun Oo to Thailand and Lt-Gen Yar Pyae to Laos to discuss anti-scam efforts. A Thai military delegation also visited Naypyitaw to discuss anti-scam operations with junta No.2 Soe Win and Chief of General Staff (Army, Navy and Air) Kyaw Swar Lin.
