Thailand says thousands of people from numerous countries have been rescued from the notorious scam centers on the other side of its border with Myanmar. Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said Wednesday that around 7,000 people who were rescued from the illegal operations are waiting to be transferred to Thailand, the Guardian reports. For years, crime syndicates have been luring people—often those with good English or Chinese language skills—to Thailand with fake job offers, then trafficking them to the centers in Myanmar, where they are forced to try to scam people around the world.
Thai authorities launched a fresh crackdown on the centers last month after Chinese actor Wang Xing was abducted in Bangkok, where he had been promised a lucrative acting job, Reuters reports. He was later rescued from Myanmar. Shinawatra promised to shut down the centers after a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, reports the BBC. Among other moves, her government cut off access to power and internet to some areas on the other side of the border.
Some 260 workers from 20 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, were repatriated last week. More than half of them were from Ethiopia. The rescued workers said they were forced to work for up to 20 hours a day trying to defraud people on messaging services like WhatsApp, and were beaten and given electric shocks if they failed to meet targets, Reuters reports. The AP reports that the repatriations were organized by a group in Myanmar called the Border Guard Force, though critics accuse it and other ethnic militias of protecting scam operations in the border region, where Myanmar's government has little influence. (More Myanmar stories.)
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