Bangkok CNN — Thailand cut electricity supplies on Wednesday to several areas in neighboring Myanmar that are home to sites at the center of a global, billion-dollar online scam industry. As of Wednesday afternoon, at least one of the scam compounds was still operating, according to a local NGO in contact with workers inside one location. Online scam factories — many run by Chinese crime syndicates — have proliferated in Myanmar, which has been riven by a bloody civil war since the military seized power in Often lured by the promise of well-paid jobs or other enticing opportunities, workers are routinely held against their will and forced to carry out online fraud schemes in heavily guarded compounds, where former detainees say beatings and torture are common.
One of those locations was in the town of Myawaddy, on the banks of a river that divides Thailand from Myanmar, and close to some of the largest scam compounds that NGOs say house thousands of workers. Several of the compounds lie near the border, where they can take advantage of more reliable electricity and telecoms services from Thailand.
Renewed focus on the sites came last month when a Chinese actor, having flown to Bangkok for what he thought was a movie casting call, was picked up at the airport and driven across the border into Myanmar and forced to work in a scam center there.
But Thailand has come under increased pressure to help curb the criminal activity and has held a series of high-profile meetings recently that suggest officials in Myanmar, Thailand and China may make stronger moves to crack down on the syndicates.
The scam compounds function much like small cities, with restaurants, grocery stores and even daycare centers, according to former workers previously interviewed by CNN. Besides scam operations, the sites also provide real estate for gambling and prostitution. Myawaddy alone is home to about 6, victims from 23 countries being held under duress in scam compounds, including about 4, Chinese nationals, according to an estimate from the Civil Society Network for Victim Assistance in Human Trafficking, a Thai NGO fighting against human trafficking.
