The boatmen cross leisurely from one side to the other of the Moei River. It is a journey of just one minute. A few meters that separate the shore of an isolated military regime in civil war, shaken by a brutal earthquake, with that of a carefree Buddhist kingdom that attracts tourists from around the world eager to have a good time. Although if one looks at the facade presented by the cities that settle on both shores, it seems that they have exchanged roles: the first, from a distance, appears to offer more fun with large shopping centers and casinos, while the other deals daily with thousands of dramas brought by those fleeing from the bombs. But it's all a facade.
The boatmen who cross to the east bank of the Moei River come across Myawaddy, in Myanmar, a city controlled by warlords that was engulfed long ago by a fertile cybercrime field run by Chinese mafias. On the west bank is Mae Sot, in Thailand, an escape route for thousands of refugees where dozens of local and international humanitarian organizations provide them with a safe haven to start anew.
This stretch of the border between Thailand and Myanmar is unguarded. "Before, many Chinese used to come here and pay us to cross because they wanted to gamble in the casinos or claimed to have found a wife, but for over a month, they haven't shown up around here," says one of the boatmen, a farmer who works in the cornfields. "Sometimes we would take four Chinese to Myawaddy and only one would return because the rest had been kidnapped," another asserts.
Myawaddy has earned the reputation of being one of the global epicenters of cyber scams. Thousands of victims, especially from China and other Southeast Asian countries, show up here with false job offers or romantic deceptions. Once they set foot on Burmese soil, in many cases, criminal gangs kidnap them and force them to make calls or online fraud targeting mainly retirees and lonely individuals worldwide.
This is what happened earlier this year to a Chinese actor named Wang Xing. Deceived by a fake casting to participate in a movie that was going to be filmed in Thailand, Wang ended up bound in a scam center in Myawaddy after arriving in Mae Sot. The actor's fame accelerated the rescue operation by the Thai police, but his case also sparked media interest in China about what was happening on the Burmese border.
Chinese authorities began pressuring Bangkok, which has intensified its crackdown on the scam centers in Myawaddy, cutting off electricity and internet services and fuel supply to hinder their operations. So far this year, over 7,000 foreigners from 28 nationalities have been rescued (mostly Chinese, but also from Vietnam, India, the Philippines, or African countries like Ethiopia and Mali), and Beijing has repatriated 3,000 nationals detained for being involved in trafficking and fraud networks.
In Myawaddy, by the river, stands a large scam center known as KK Park, which apparently is a commercial complex with hotels and casinos. It is very easy to reach, by paying the boatmen, from the Thai shore. "The dangerous part is being caught inside by the mafias or armed groups that control this place," points out a Thai "guide" who has long made a living by taking Chinese citizens to the Burmese city. "The price of a flight from Bangkok to Mae Sot doubled after the Chinese started coming in droves, filling the two daily flights because they wanted to cross to Myawaddy," he says.
"Some go to gamble in the casinos, but many others are deceived with promises of easy money, well-paid jobs, or because they have met a woman or man on a dating app who doesn't actually exist. There are also those who voluntarily want to work in scam centers because it's quick money," explains the Thai.
These centers along the border like KK Park, where an estimated 100,000 people are believed to be trapped, are located in a mountain-surrounded territory controlled by two Burmese ethnic militia groups, the Karen Border Guard Force and the Karen Democratic Benevolent Army, who also profit from this cybercrime industry - laundering scam money with cryptocurrencies - taking advantage of the anarchy reigning in border areas after four years of civil war following the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021.
In an attempt to show cooperation in operations to close scam centers, the border guard has conducted some tours for local journalists to these complexes. However, there are many testimonies from victims and international observers pointing out that armed groups are also benefiting from these activities. "There is a clear alignment of interests between the guerrillas and criminal organizations. The mafias, in exchange for their complicity, finance the purchase of weapons and the recruitment of new troops," says Jason Tower, Myanmar director at the United States Institute of Peace.
Yiang Lu, a delivery man from the southern Chinese province of Guangxi, was deceived with a lucrative business proposal through a popular Chinese social network. A supposed compatriot working in Myanmar told him she was making a lot of money with a new food distribution company in South Asia and was looking for a partner to expand into China. They agreed to meet in Myawaddy. The Chinese crossed from Mae Sot by the river and, upon arrival at the meeting point, instead of the woman he had been talking to, he found three men, one of them armed, who forcibly put him in a van and took him to KK Park.
"First, they took away my documents and phone. Then, they took me to some offices and there I had to memorize a script to scam people over the phone, especially elderly individuals, in China. I had to pretend to be a man looking for investors for a promising export business," recounts Yang, who is now under the protection of Thai authorities awaiting to return to his country along with a group of compatriots rescued in a recent operation.
For social media scams, at KK Park, there were departments responsible for creating profiles of potential victims. "During the first two months, I could move freely around the city. But since I couldn't scam many people, later on, they started beating me and forcing me to spend over 15 hours making random calls looking for new victims," Yang recalls. "After six months, when they saw they couldn't squeeze me anymore, they let me call my parents to ask for a ransom of 50,000 yuan (around 6,300 euros). When the money arrived, they released me, and I returned to Thailand."