By AFP
Battered and bruised Chinese workers from online scam centres in Myanmar faced an anxious wait to return home, as China and Thailand finalised plans on Wednesday for their repatriation.
Scam compounds have flourished in Myanmar’s lawless borderlands, staffed by foreigners, many of whom say they were trafficked and forced to work swindling people around the world.
Many of those involved are Chinese, though people from numerous countries have been caught up in an industry analysts say is worth billions of dollars a year.
The Kayin State Border Guard Force, a militia allied with the Myanmar junta, has said it is preparing to deport 10,000 people linked to the compounds in areas it controls on the border with Thailand.
In a shabby, strip-lit room in a building in Shwe Kokko – a border town in Kayin State’s Myawaddy Township known as a hub for scam centres – dozens of workers, mostly Chinese, sprawled on plastic sheeting, looking exhausted as they awaited their deportation.
An Agence France-Presse stringer was among a group of journalists taken by the BGF on Tuesday to meet some of the workers.
Some bore shocking bruises – one man’s bottom was completely covered in livid purple, while several showed painful lesions on their lower legs and others had burn injuries.
“I really want to go home,” said one Chinese man, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I wanted to go home as soon as I arrived. I really miss my parents and family.”
“I am very nervous,” he told AFP.
Lieutenant-Colonel Naing Maung Zaw, a spokesman for the BGF, said six Chinese men who were supervising the centres had been detained and would be handed over to China as suspects.
“Some workers were tortured and were injured in scam centres that are not in our controlled areas,” he told reporters.
Chinese minister visit
China’s Public Security Assistant Minister Liu Zhongyi met Thai ministers in Bangkok on Wednesday to agree the return of a first batch of 600 Chinese nationals.
They will be handed over from around 9:30 am Thailand time on Thursday and taken by truck to the airport in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, around 12 kilometres south of Shwe Kokko, according to a Thai military source.
Chinese planes will then take them home. The first two flights are expected to arrive in Mae Sot on Wednesday evening, with six more due on Thursday, local authorities said.
The planned deportations follow Liu’s visit on Monday to Shwe Kokko where he met more than 1,000 of the alleged forced workers.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Wednesday there were about 7,000 people still awaiting release in centres in Myanmar.
Last week, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army handed 260 alleged scam centre workers from Myanmar to Thai authorities, some of whom told AFP of severe punishments meted out by their Chinese bosses.
Those workers came from a dozen countries, including the Philippines, Ethiopia, Brazil and Nepal.
AFP spoke to some under condition of anonymity. Many bore signs of physical abuse, including one woman who had huge bruises on her left arm and thigh and said she had been electrocuted.
Many workers say they were lured or tricked by promises of high-paying jobs before they were effectively held hostage, their passports taken from them while they were forced to commit online fraud.
Scam centres have proliferated across Southeast Asia in recent years, including in Cambodia and the Philippines.
Authorities and militia groups have made a show of raiding the centres, which have also been linked to drug smuggling and gambling, before releasing and repatriating the foreigners inside.
Thailand’s defence ministry on Wednesday said it was ready to host a three-way meeting next week on cooperation against cross-border crimes.
