More than 2,800 Chinese telecom fraud suspects who were gang members enticing locals and foreigners to work in telecom scam centres across the Myanmar-Thailand border have been sent back to China to face trials.
2,876 Chinese suspects of telecom fraud have been repatriated from Myawaddy, Myanmar to China under a joint crackdown by China, Myanmar, and Thailand, announced the Ministry of Public Security on Friday. As stated by the ministry, 2,255 of the suspects were recently returned to China aboard chartered planes under escort by Chinese police.
This massive repatriation is a significant achievement of the tri-nation operation begun on February 20 and an emphatic warning to global criminal syndicates, the ministry added. The ministry also promised to enhance international cooperation in law enforcement and further crackdown on telecom fraud, assuring the security and property of Chinese citizens.
Earlier last month, four main culprits of cross-border telecom fraud were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chinese court as part of a heightened crackdown against gangs running scam centres along the Myanmar-Thailand border.
In February, an ethnic armed group in Myanmar’s Karen state liberated hundreds of individuals from 20 different nationalities, including Indians, who were compelled to labour in the fraud centres and sent them to Thailand. These syndicates enticed foreign workers with the prospect of high pay or tricked them into thinking that they would work in Thailand instead of Myanmar.
Scammers specifically targeted workers who were fluent in the languages of their cyber fraud victims, which were mostly English and Chinese, a BBC report from Thailand states. These impersonators who claimed to be officials were also a part of a series of Indian and other countries’ bank frauds where victims were intimidated to lose money in internet calls. These internet cons where individuals lost massive sums of money made waves in India, China and a number of other nations.
