MAE SOT, Thailand—Myanmar on Thursday handed over the first batch of hundreds of Chinese scam center workers who are set to be repatriated through Thailand in the coming days.
Thousands of foreigners are expected to be freed and returned from scam compounds in Myanmar in the coming weeks, starting with 600 Chinese over the next three days.
The compounds run by criminal gangs are staffed by foreigners, many of whom say they were trafficked and forced to work running internet scams swindling people around the world.
Many of those involved are Chinese, and Beijing has stepped up pressure on Myanmar and Thailand to shut the centers down.
The Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), a militia allied with the Myanmar junta, has said it is preparing to deport 10,000 people linked to the compounds in areas it controls on the border with Thailand.
Two double-decker coaches delivered a first round of returning workers to the border post in the western Thai town of Mae Sot on Thursday morning, AFP journalists at the scene saw.
“First group of 50 Chinese have crossed to Thailand and headed to the airport. There will be three more batches [today], each with 50 Chinese,” a local border task force official told AFP.
China has put on 16 flights over the next three days to ferry 600 of its nationals home direcly from Mae Sot.
Chinese security personnel are expected to accompany the returnees on the planes, and it is not clear what fate awaits them back in China.
The release follows several visits by Chinese Public Security Assistant Minister Liu Zhongyi to Bangkok and the border in recent weeks to arrange the repatriation.
Scam centers have proliferated across Southeast Asia in recent years, including in Cambodia and the Philippines, as the value of the industry has boomed to billions of dollars a year.
Many workers say they were lured or tricked into the centers by promises of high-paying jobs before they were effectively held hostage, their passports taken from them while they were forced to commit online fraud.
Many have said they suffered beatings and other abuse at the hands of their supervisors, and AFP has interviewed numerous workers freed from centers with severe bruising and burns. An AFP stringer was among a group of journalists taken by the BGF on Tuesday to meet some of the workers in a building in Shwe Kokko—a Myanmar border town known as a hub for scam centers.
In a shabby, strip-lit room, dozens of workers, mostly Chinese, sprawled on plastic sheeting, looking exhausted as they awaited their deportation.
Some bore shocking bruises—one man’s bottom was completely covered in livid purple—while several showed painful lesions on their lower legs and others had burn injuries.
“I really want to go home,” said one Chinese man, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I wanted to go home as soon as I arrived. I really miss my parents and family.”
“I am very nervous,” he told AFP.
Naing Maung Zaw, a spokesman for the Karen BGF, said six Chinese men who were supervising the centers had been detained and would be handed over to China as suspects.
“Some workers were tortured and were injured in scam centers that are not in our controlled areas,” he told reporters.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Wednesday there were about 7,000 people still awaiting release in centers in Myanmar.
Last week, another local militia handed 260 alleged scam center workers from Myanmar to Thai authorities, some of whom told AFP of severe punishments meted out by their Chinese bosses.
Those workers came from a dozen countries, including the Philippines, Ethiopia, Brazil and Nepal.
AFP spoke to some under condition of anonymity. Many bore signs of physical abuse, including one woman who had huge bruises on her left arm and thigh and said she had been electrocuted.
Many workers say they were lured or tricked by promises of high-paying jobs before they were effectively held hostage, their passports taken from them while they were forced to commit online fraud.
Scam centers have proliferated across Southeast Asia in recent years, including in Cambodia and the Philippines.
Authorities and militia groups have made a show of raiding the centers, which have also been linked to drug smuggling and gambling, before releasing and repatriating the foreigners inside.
Thailand’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday said it was ready to host a three-way meeting next week on cooperation against cross-border crimes.
