- विज्ञापन -
New Delhi: Scam centres operating along the Thai-Myanmar border for years have gained renewed attention after the high-profile abduction and subsequent release of a Chinese actor in Thailand.
The actor revealed that he had been lured into the facility under the pretence of a lucrative job opportunity. He said that he had flown to Bangkok for an acting job offered to him on WeChat. He realised he was kidnapped after he crossed a river into Myanmar and noticed the rudimentary living conditions, he told the cops.
He also told the Thai police that there were around 50 Chinese nationals held in the same place as him alone. Notably, these centres, reportedly run by organised criminal networks, coerce victims into conducting online scams and other fraudulent operations.
The incident sparked a multi-national effort among Thailand, China and Myanmar to dismantle the centres in a network of scam compounds across Southeast Asia. Criminal gangs have trafficked hundreds of thousands of people to such centres to help generate illicit revenues running into billions of dollars a year, the United Nations says.
About 7,000 people have been rescued from illegal call centre operations in Myanmar and were waiting to be transferred to Thailand, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Wednesday, as the country launched a large-scale crackdown on scam centres operating on the border.
Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, which share borders with Thailand, have in recent years become havens for transnational crime syndicates operating online scam operations, including romance scams, bogus investments and illegal gambling.
Myawaddy area in Myanmar is totally inaccessible, including by Myanmar security forces as the area is controlled by opposition rebel forces. The government of Myanmar tries to help, but its reach is limited, the people cited above said. It facilitates immigration and exit only after Indian nationals reach a local police station, they said.
In an advisory in May, the Indian embassy said an international crime syndicate is active in the Myawaddy region on Myanmar-Thailand border and urged Indians to exercise caution before taking up job offers in the region.
