A local armed group responsible for assisting in repatriation revealed that more than 200 foreigners rescued from a fraud center in eastern Myanmar are still stranded in the war-torn Myanmar-Thailand border area and have not yet returned home.
The United Nations pointed out that in recent years, criminal networks have trafficked people on a large scale throughout Southeast Asia, and victims have been forced to work in illegal online fraud parks. The Myanmar-Thailand border area is one of the hardest hit areas.
The Kayan National Army (KNA), active in Myanmar’s Myawaddy region, said on Tuesday (June 24) that they have assisted more than 8,000 foreigners to escape from the fraud park and arrange repatriation in recent months, and currently 216 people are still being resettled. These people include Vietnamese, Chinese, Philippine and Indonesian citizens, some of whom are pregnant.
A KNA spokesman said: “We are providing these people with food and medical supplies… Some of them are even pregnant, and we are also providing them with medical care.”
In order to cut off the operating network of fraud activities, the Thai government has stopped supplying electricity, Internet and fuel to five Myanmar border areas including Myawaddy since February this year.
Myawaddy is located across from Mae Sot in Thailand and is one of the main trading ports in eastern Myanmar. Local residents said that the Thai power supply has been interrupted for months, and the power service provided by the Myanmar government is also extremely unstable. Many fraud parks and residents can only rely on diesel generators to maintain operations.
Thai Prime Minister Petunthan revealed that the authorities will consider taking similar power outage measures in Cambodia to curb the further spread of fraud. “After we cut off electricity and water supply in Myanmar, the number of related complaints has dropped significantly.”
She added: “We found that criminal activities have moved from Myanmar to Cambodia.”
The Cambodian government denies the allegations.
