A crackdown on scam compounds in Myanmar. Photo credits: Chinese Ministry of Public Security.
The lucrative scamming industry is of strategic interest to the Myanmar military and associated forces to fund their war on the Myanmar people, with Myanmar becoming a significant hub for transnational crime in the wake of the 2021 military coup.
Transnational criminal networks, predominantly from China, have proliferated in Southeast Asia over the past decade. These criminal networks operate across borders, making use of porous borders and weak governance in countries like Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos.
The Myanmar military has played a crucial role in establishing criminal enclaves along its borders, particularly in Karen State along the Thai border and in the Kokang area along the Chinese border.
While scam syndicates initially focused on illegal online gambling aimed at mainland China, they have now expanded into sophisticated high-tech scams known as “pig butchering.” which relies heavily on forced labour.
“Pig-butchering” is an elaborate scam where the perpetrator builds trust with the victim, often forming fake romantic or investment relationships. Once trust is established, the scammers convince victims to invest money in fraudulent schemes, often involving cryptocurrency. The term refers to “fattening up” the victim, the “pig”, before “slaughtering” them by stealing their money.
By the end of 2023, the annual global value of funds stolen by these networks is conservatively estimated to at US$64 billion, with the real cost likely much higher.
A move by China’s law enforcement in late 2023 to close down the scam compounds on Myanmar’s border with China led many of them to relocate to the south in Myanmar’s Karen State, on the border with Thailand, as well as to Cambodia and Laos.
In addition to the millions of innocent victims who are impacted by these scams worldwide, hundreds of thousands of individuals are trafficked into the scam industry and subjected to serious human rights violations, such as torture, arbitrary detention, sexual violence and forced labour. At least 120,000 individuals from 40 countries are being held in scam centres in Myanmar.
MCN calls for the Australian Government to sanction scam syndicate leaders and their co-conspirators, including key Border Guard Forces such as Karen BGF’s San Myint aka Saw Chit Thu and his business network.