260 foreigners rescued from virtual slavery in Myanmar’s online scam centers are being repatriated

BANGKOK — Some 260 people believed to have been trafficked and trapped into working in online scam centers are to be repatriated after they were rescued from Myanmar, Thailand’s army announced Thursday.

In a fresh crackdown on scam centers operating from Southeast Asia, the Thai army said it was coordinating an effort to repatriate some 260 people believed to have been victims of human trafficking after they were rescued and sent from Myanmar to Thailand.

Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, which share borders with Thailand, have become known as havens for criminal syndicates that are estimated to have forced hundreds of thousands of people in Southeast Asia and elsewhere into helping run online scams including false romantic ploys, bogus investment pitches and illegal gambling schemes.

Such scams have extracted tens of billions of dollars from victims around the world, according to U.N. experts, while the people recruited to carry them out have often been tricked into taking the jobs under false pretenses and trapped in virtual slavery.

An earlier crackdown on scam centers in Myanmar was initiated in late 2023 after China expressed embarrassment and concern over illegal casinos and scam operations in Myanmar’s northern Shan state along its border. Ethnic guerrilla groups with close ties to Beijing shut down many operations, and an estimated 45,000 Chinese nationals suspected of involvement were repatriated.

The army said that those rescued in the most recent operation came from 20 nationalities — with significant numbers from Ethiopia, Kenya, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan and China. There were also nationals of Indonesia, Nepal, Taiwan, Uganda, Laos, Brazil, Burundi, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Ghana and India. They were sent across the border from Myanmar’s Myawaddy district to Thailand’s Tak province on Wednesday.

Reports in Thai media said a Myanmar ethnic militia that controls the area where they were held, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, was responsible for freeing the workers and taking them to the border. Myanmar’s military government exercises little control over frontier areas where ethnic minorities predominate.

Several ethnic militias are believed to be involved in criminal activities, including drug trafficking and protecting call-center scam operations.

The Thai army statement said the rescued people will undergo questioning, and if determined to be victims of human trafficking, will enter a process of…