Hundreds of people who had been working in Myanmar's scam centres have been repatriated to China on evacuation flights, marking Beijing's latest success in cracking down on the illicit operations. The flights, organised by China, took off from Mae Sot in Thailand, carrying about 150 people each, with plans to repatriate up to 1,000 individuals.
The scam centres, which hold hundreds of thousands of human trafficking victims, have generated billions of dollars for Chinese crime syndicates and armed groups in Myanmar. China has intensified pressure on Myanmar's military government and ethnic armed groups to shut down the centres, which have been linked to both organised crime and funding of Myanmar's civil war.
Many victims are lured by false advertisements promising easy work and benefits, only to be imprisoned and forced to run online scams. Those who resist face threats, torture, and inhuman treatment. The United Nations estimates that up to 120,000 people have been trafficked into Myanmar's centres, with another 100,000 in Cambodia.
The recent repatriations follow battlefield victories by ethnic insurgents along the China-Myanmar border last year, which led to the closure of several major scam centres. Thousands of victims, many of them Chinese, were handed over to Chinese authorities. Myanmar's Ministry of Public Security reported that about 44,000 people suspected of involvement in the centres have been transferred to China.
Among the most high-profile cases were three Chinese warlords, known for trafficking thousands of foreign workers to run scams, who were sent to Beijing in January. The crackdowns have resulted in numerous centres being shut down, though the full extent of the operations remains unclear.
