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The Myawaddy Scammer Crackdown: The Compounds Are Gone, but the Networks Remain
The Myawaddy Scammer Crackdown: The Compounds Are Gone, but the Networks Remain
TCIJ x Prachatai: Report
Cover illustration by Kittiya On-in
From late 2025 to early 2026, pressure on scam-centre operations across the Mekong region rose to an unprecedented level. Law-enforcement measures expanded beyond the arrest of rank-and-file workers inside scam compounds to include actions against capital groups and executives accused of standing behind transnational criminal networks.
In October 2025, the United States and the United Kingdom announced sanctions and legal action against Chen Zhi, chairman of Prince Group, for online fraud, money laundering and forced labour. He was subsequently arrested by Cambodian authorities and extradited to China for prosecution. A similar fate befell She Zhijiang, chair of the Yatai group and developer of the Yatai-Shwe Kokko New City project. Detaining in Thailand since 2022, he was extradited to China on 12 November 2025.
Police escort She Zhijiang back to China for prosecution on 12 November 2025. Source: Matichon Online.
The Myanmar military released images from a search of a building inside KK Park and the seizure of Starlink satellite-internet equipment. The operation began on 19 October 2025. Source: Mizzima.
Advance tip offs
On 19 October 2025, the Myanmar military formally raided KK Park. But days earlier, local sources reported that senior managers and owners of a number of scam compounds had already been informed about the pending action. According to those accounts, the Border Guard Force/Karen National Army (BGF/KNA) and the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), which had long protected these networks, moved bosses and senior managers out of the area before the backhoes arrived.
Lower-level scam workers were left to find their own way out. A Filipino worker, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Associated Press that he and 20 colleagues escaped by jumping over a fence, leaving five Ethiopian workers on the same team behind. “They wanted to go to another company,” he said. He also claims to have heard Chinese bosses discussing plans to move to Cambodia.
Workers who fled KK Park were scattered across nearby scam compounds that were still operating, including Dongmei Park, Huanya Park, Poly Park and Shunda Park around Mae Htaw Tha Lay, In Kyin Myaing and Min Let Pan, as well as Wankha, Thaepone and Myawaddy town. Some also moved into areas under DKBA control, including Kyauk Khet, Waw Lay and Payathonzu, or Three Pagodas Pass. One Filipina said the scam company she worked for moved dozens of people, computers and Wi-Fi routers to nearby Huanya Park in order to continue a gold-trading scam targeting an elderly American man.
Although the Myanmar junta later claimed that the demolition of KK Park was complete, that all buildings had been destroyed and that thousands of suspects had been arrested, satellite imagery tells a different story. The Center for Information Resilience (CIR), a London-based non-profit monitoring human-rights abuses, found that during the first round of demolitions, the one Myanmar authorities claimed completely destroyed the compound, only 31 buildings were flattened. 78 others were only partially damaged, leaving roofs, ceilings and floors largely intact.
Guy Fusfus of Myanmar Witness, a CIR affiliate, told AP that this may have been done to facilitate reconstruction, a hypothesis seemingly born out by subsequent developments. Analysts with C4ADS, a nonprofit organisation that works to defeat the illicit networks that threaten global peace and security, compared satellite imagery at 21 suspected scam sites in Myawaddy District, and found that 14, including KK Park, showed signs of new construction, expansion or renovation since January 2026.
Figures released by Myanmar News Agency add another layer of complexity to the analysis. By January 2026, the junta reported that 635 illegal buildings in KK Park had been demolished. Later, in June 2026, it reported that demolition work was still continuing in Shwe Kokko, where 77 illegal buildings had been identified. Of these, 64 had already been demolished, while 13 remained to be removed.
The illusion of a crackdown
Observers note that Myanmar authorities were not entirely on board with the crackdown. Jason Tower, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), believes that the KK Park operation was simply a way for the country’s military leaders to relieve pressure from the United States and China while continuing to tolerate lucrative criminal activity. “There is no real political will to crack down,” he said.
A 2025 report by a Thai parliamentary subcommittee on call-centre scams identified yet another obstacle to suppressing scam networks. Whenever authorities raided a compound, the gangs dissolved and relocated to new areas beyond the reach of law enforcement, recruiting workers and resuming operations. According to the report, grey Chinese capital expanded into border cities such as Laukkai in Shan State, Boten in Laos, and Tha Sen-Thmoda in Cambodia, using Thailand as a transit route and resource base. Without real international cooperation, the report warned, the fight against scam gangs would remain an endless chase.
After the crackdown
In conducting this investigation, reporters monitored 33 Telegram online groups over the first half of 2026. These are part of a wider online environment that includes cross-border job groups, overseas Thai community chat groups, Burmese-language employment groups, Myawaddy-based Chinese-language groups, everyday trading groups, and channels buying and selling bank accounts, personal data and services linked to the grey economy.
We covered chat groups that focussed on the Thai-Myanmar border (9 groups), the Thai-Laos border (1 group), and the Thai-Cambodia border (23 groups). Functioning as job boards, they also amount to an online ecosystem where people in border areas can exchange information on accommodation, border-crossing services, transport, cash and cryptocurrency exchange, phones, social-media accounts, IT equipment, bank accounts and personal data. Some also solicit local services in Myawaddy, Tachileik and Poipet. In other words, they provide communication and service infrastructure for people and networks operating in border economies.
Despite the crackdown on major scam compounds in KK Park, Shwe Kokko and parts of the Thai-Cambodia border, the groups remained active. They continued to carry job ads, bank-account and social-media-account trading, customer-data sales, cryptocurrency exchange, border-crossing services and everyday goods and services. As to whether the major compounds were truly dismantled or simply relocated, our examination of chat groups suggests dispersal around Myawaddy, movement deeper into Myanmar, and relocation to neighboring countries.
Adapting in Myawaddy
As noted above, senior figures from KK Park reportedly dispersed to Wankha, Thaepone, Shwe Kokko and Myawaddy town under BGF protection, as well as to Kyauk Khet and Waw Lay along routes controlled by the DKBA and the Myanmar military.
Observers at both the Irrawaddy and Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar (ISP Myanmar) document the process. Both describe it as an adaptation, one in which large, centralised scam compounds are giving way to more scattered units. GI-TOC similarly notes that scam centres in Southeast Asia have become highly adaptive and mobile; once targeted, they temporarily suspend operations in one place before moving to smaller, less visible locations and other jurisdictions.
By way of example, the Irrawaddy reported that Qingsong Park, also known as Thai Hoa Garden, was rapidly redeveloping at a site hidden in hills five kilometres from the original KK Park and is now protected by the BGF. People who photographed the site from inside are reportedly called it “KK Park 2.0.” AP noted that more than 200 African workers from KK Park were moved into the nearby Apollo compound. Another observer said that people who stayed at Hengsheng Park 4 later moved on, with many reportedly heading to Cambodia, Mauritius and Africa. He added that his company was still using Starlink terminals; although three stopped working after SpaceX cut service, a fourth remained functional.
In December 2025, Khaosod English/Transborder News carried news that the BGF was accelerating construction of a new scam centre near the Dawna foothills, around 20 kilometres from Shwe Kokko. Karen workers in the area said Chinese investors and network leaders from older compounds had relocated to Tid Ka Taw village, where buildings, water, electricity, internet, roads and accommodation were being rapidly developed.
She Zhijiang and the Media Campaign
Networks around Shwe Kokko and Yatai also sought to rebuild public support for She Zhijiang. During his detention at Bangkok’s Klong Prem Central Prison, Thai media carried stories about more than 3,000 Myanmar residents gathering at Shwe Kokko Yatai on 10 August 2024 to pray for him. The stories appeared in Manager Online, Thai Public Media, Amarin TV, Khaosod and video reports distributed by Nation Online, Asia Morning, and JKN. Some material linked back to the YouTube channel 大美亚太 (“Beautiful Yatai”), which publishes content from Shwe Kokko New City.
The stories carried a similar message: that he was the founder and benefactor of Shwe Kokko Yatai, a city-builder whose investments had replaced muddy roads and huts with lights and modern buildings, creating jobs and improving the lives of tens of thousands of people. The reports also claimed that Shwe Kokko Asia Pacific City had little to do with KK Park scam operations. Instead, the narrative emphasised community gratitude for his role in economic development.
Headline: “More than 3,000 Myanmar residents join a major merit-making event in Shwe Kokko to send moral support to ‘She Zhijiang’.” Published as a public-relations item on Amarin TV’s website, 23 August 2024.
A video news item sending prayers and encouragement to She Zhijiang, founder of Shwe Kokko New City, published on Nation Online’s YouTube channel on 22 August 2024.
The Yatai-Shwe Kokko Telegram channel posted news and images on 14 August 2024 from an event sending moral support to She Zhijiang. Source: Telegram 缅甸克伦邦省水沟谷市亚太城.
Public relations efforts were also conducted over Telegram. On 14 August 2024, the channel 缅甸克伦邦省水沟谷市亚太城, or “Yatai City, Shwe Kokko, Karen State, Myanmar,” (https://t.me/yatai8), which published news, activities and announcements for the Yatai project and had around 1,267 followers, posted images and news of a “moral support” event for She in both Chinese and Burmese. The reports carried the same message: prayers for She’s safe return and for Yatai-Shwe Kokko to be prosperous, stable and peaceful.
The channel stopped posting on 10 October 2025, shortly before the operations in KK Park and Shwe Kokko and She’s extradition to China. Another channel, 亚太文娱综合频道 (“Yatai Culture and Entertainment Channel”), which claimed to cover “diverse life in Yatai” through sports, music, photography, reading and community activities, stopped posting on 12 November 2025. It is not clear whether Yatai-Shwe Kokko created new channels or moved to other platforms. Other Chinese-language Telegram groups around Myawaddy remained active, however.
Grey Telegram networks around Myawaddy
Our reporters followed 33 Telegram chat groups linked to business networks along the Thai-Myanmar border. These included Thai-language groups for some 600 or so Thais working in Myanmar’s Myawaddy and Tachileik areas; a Burmese-language job group about Myawaddy and other parts of Myanmar with some 5,200 members and a Chinese-language chat group that carried “Yatai gossip” (吃瓜). With around 5,000 members, this latter platform was used to discuss work and life around Myawaddy and nearby areas.
A recruitment post for a “stock admin,” suspected to be a form of online investment-scam work.
During late October and early November 2025, when the Myanmar military began the KK Park crackdown, Thai language chat groups continued to post job ads, many inviting workers to move to Poipet, Cambodia. Positions advertised included stock administration, chat administration, line add administration, HR work, deposit-withdrawal accounting and ad-buying/customer-acquisition work. The posts offered salaries, accommodation, meals, travel costs and, in some cases, acceptance of applicants without passports.
Job descriptions did not suggest work at legitimate securities brokerages. There was no mention of licences, qualifications or securities firm experience; instead, duties reportedly focused on answering Line chats, managing customers and earning commission based on volume. Accommodation and meals were promised for those taking positions in Poipet. While insufficient to prove criminal conduct, the ads raise the possibility that scam networks were recruiting for positions in Cambodia even as their operations in Myanmar were under stress.
Thai-language posts also included discussions of selling social-media, advertising and platform accounts, which could support online marketing, fake identities or fraud. It included recruitment for “face-scan” workers to complete KYC verification for bank and TrueMoney accounts, and posts requiring applicants to hold multiple bank accounts and stay at company accommodation for 3-7 days. The description is consistent with mule-account recruitment and identity verification that is used to move money or digital assets.
On 30 March 2026, the platform also ran an ad for an “assistant to buy USDT on Binance.” Applicants were asked to use their own Binance and bank accounts to buy and transfer USDT according to instructions, in return for per-round payments. Such arrangements resemble crypto-mule schemes used in scam networks, online gambling and cross-border money laundering.
Recruitment post for a “girlfriend-style admin,” a role consistent with romance-scam or pig-butchering operations.
On 31 March, the same group advertised “girlfriend-style admin” work near a casino in Poipet, with a salary, commission, free accommodation and food, and no requirement for experience or a passport. The wording is consistent with relationship-building roles used in romance or pig-butchering scams, where workers build trust before pushing victims toward investments or financial transfers.
Conversation asking about entering work on the Myawaddy side in June 2026
From mid to late June 2026, job recruitment in the Telegram group remained active, with posts seeking administrators, customer chat operators, deposit-withdrawal staff, and online marketing workers in Myawaddy, Tachileik, and even Pakistan. Many advertisements emphasised free travel, visas, accommodation, meals, no passport confiscation, no detention, and freedom to go outside, suggesting attempts to reassure applicants amid reports of fraud and forced labour in scam compounds.
Beyond recruitment, the group also functioned as a marketplace for digital tools and services, including Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and LINE accounts, advertising accounts, follower and view-boosting services, Telegram bots, phones, and IT equipment. It further featured ongoing trade in bank accounts, including personal and corporate accounts, some bundled with phones, SIM cards, ATM cards, banking apps, and completed identity verification.
Our investigation found offers to sell customer databases and personal information, including lists of general customers, high-value customers, and people who had previously been scammed, sometimes with ID copies and trial samples. At the same time, everyday conversations about food, phones, computer shops, kratom drinks, delivery services, border crossings, and transport showed that the Telegram group served not only as a job board, but also as a broader information hub for people working or travelling in border areas.
Example of a Burmese-language recruitment post for a “Find Chat” position in Shwe Kokko.
Example of a recruitment post for a “US Chatting” position in Shwe Kokko.
On Burmese-language chat platforms, most content consisted of repeated job ads rather than discussion. Many posts named “SKK” or Shwe Kokko and used specialised terms such as “Find Chat,” “Finding,” “M1,” “M2,” “Reception,” “Killer,” “First Deposit” and “Second Deposit.” Some ads offered salaries of 20,000-50,000 baht plus commission, set performance targets based on “opening accounts” and US-dollar amounts, and assigned night shifts corresponding to daytime in the Americas. Others recruited “US Chatting” staff or divided work by target countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Peru and Colombia.
While the ads do not constitute proof of illegal activity, they do suggest recruitment for online scam operations, in keeping with reports of continued scam operations around Myawaddy. This was confirmed by Chawanwit Jaikas, a former NGO worker in Mae Sot who monitors cross-border crime. In an interview with Prachatai, he claimed that after the KK Park crackdown, call-centre gangs were still operating in Myawaddy and nearby areas, including Phalu opposite Mae Sot. He also said that new buildings were constructed before and after the crackdown, and that movements were visible around Min Let Pan.
The claim explains supporting infrastructure discovered by Thai authorities on 5 March 2026 at a border cargo-transit area in Mae Tao, Mae Sot. An investigation was launched after True Corporation detected abnormal 24-hour internet use from two customers registered at the same location. It found that the building had been modified as a relay point sending internet signals across the Moei River into Myanmar under cover of a transport business. Even after KK Park was targeted, infrastructure supporting scam operations along the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border was still functioning.
Operations do not appear to have ever really ended. In late April 2026, the Irrawaddy reported that scammers were returning to Shwe Kokko under BGF/KNA control. Rather than operating openly in the Chinese-built new city, networks were reportedly renting hotels, guesthouses and large houses, scattering workers into smaller groups that were harder to detect. Recruitment that stopped in January reportedly surged again in March. More than five months after promises to clean up Shwe Kokko, there were reports that only a few buildings had been demolished there, belying the junta’s claim to have totally demolished KK Park. Observers described the crackdown as performative; networks simply moved back from the border, reestablishing operations in small residential units.
A new centre also emerged in Karen State. In late April 2026, Saw Chit Thu, a local powerbroker linked to scam zones was given an official peace role there. Leader of the BGF/KNA forces that control Shwe Kokko, he was appointed chair of the junta’s “peace committee.” Shortly thereafter, in early May, media reports began circulating that a new zone in Shwe Kokko near Saw Chit Thu’s sphere of influence was active. Its lights are reportedly visible at night, despite earlier reports that the area had been subject to power shortages and military raids.
Moving deeper into Myanmar
As scam centres along the Chinese and Thai borders came under greater international scrutiny, GI-TOC noted that operators were relocating to more remote parts of Shan and Karen States. Satellite internet and solar panels reportedly allowed operations to function 100-200 kilometres away from border zones. A 2025 study by Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Economics similarly concluded that border-based scam centres were spreading into major cities such as Yangon and Mandalay, southward toward Payathonzu, and northward into southern Shan State - areas sharing one feature: weak or inaccessible law enforcement.
This trend was reflected in the Chinese-language “Yatai gossip” group. Aside from discussions, it carried gambling-platform ads promoting USDT deposits and withdrawals, no KYC, no bank-card linkage and no IP restrictions, as well as job ads for customer service, risk management, payments and customer acquisition in online gambling. Some ads claimed work locations in Dubai, Vietnam, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, with brokers handling travel from the Myanmar side.
A “fare-collection notice” posted on 20 June 2026; the poster offered a “tea money” reward for information on the person’s whereabouts.
Posts on the platform also alluded to transport costs associated with movement of people between Myawaddy/Yatai-Shwe Kokko, Kyeikdon and Payathonzu. On 20 June 2026, one asked members to help locate a man who had not paid for travel on the Myawaddy-Kyeikdon-Payathonzu route, offering “tea money” for information. Others commented that rewards for tracking people were becoming more common. Another suggested reporting the case to an armed group or “village” instead of posting in the group. One individual joked that an unpaid fare was minor compared with escaping the area. The exchanges suggest a dispute over guide fees linked to moving people between scam-centre zones.
A Chinese-language post on 24 June 2026, discussing a person detained by an armed group in Myawaddy. To return to work in the Yatai-Shwe Kokko area, the person was allegedly required to place a 150,000-baht guarantee.
On 24 June, another user said a spouse had been detained by an armed group for several days and claimed to have been told that, to return to work in Yatai, the company had to place a 150,000-baht guarantee; otherwise the person would be sent back to Myawaddy within three days. Members said the amount was excessive, although some said they had seen demands of up to 300,000 baht. Others warned that the information might be inaccurate or specific to this paticular case.
The same day, a member commented that renting houses or small venues for scam work in Muse, northern Shan State, was risky because many people had been arrested. The user asked whether it would be better to work in Yatai-Shwe Kokko as a “小推推” (xiao tui tui), slang for a frontline chat worker in a scam centre.
Families use Telegram to expose locations and names
Appeal from the family of a person allegedly tricked into working in a scam centre in northern Shan State, posted on 26 June 2026.
The Chinese-language platform was also used by families seeking help for people allegedly trapped in scam centres in northern Myanmar. On 26 June 2026, one family posted about a Chinese man named “Xinxin,” saying he had been tricked by an acquaintance into entering a northern Shan State scam centre and had then fallen out of contact for more than seven days. Xinxin reportedly told his family before going that if he did contact them within seven days, they should publish the names and locations of those involved and seek help.
The post identified two alleged scam-centre locations. The first, described as an “old centre” at 21.632789, 98.644178, was said to be in a forested mountain area near the Salween River, holding more than 100 Chinese nationals whose passports and phones had been confiscated and who were forced to commit online fraud. The post alleged violence against those who disobeyed or tried to flee and claimed that two Chinese men who attempted escape had been killed before detainees were moved to a new site deeper in the mountains.
The post said Xinxin was currently held near Wan Hai, Kehsi Township, northern Shan State, giving the coordinates 21.981381, 98.282026. It also named alleged operators, brokers and guards, including a man called “A Liang,” said to be around 45 years old from Guangdong, previously active in Laukkai and Mong Pawk . The family offered a 50,000-yuan reward for information or photographs of the named individuals.
Google Maps image showing a cluster of buildings in a forested area. Relatives of a person allegedly deceived into scam work identified it as the “old centre” deep in the forest near the Salween River in Shan State.
Our investigators checked both sets of coordinates through open-source methods. The first shows a large cluster of buildings in forest beside the Salween River, consistent with the family’s description. The second shows forest and farmland with no permanent building visible. Both are in Kehsi Township, Mong Hsu District, northern Shan State. Current information is insufficient to determine whether the alleged centres are under the protection of the Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) or any other ethnic armed group.
Reports from other sources also point to expansion into Myanmar’s interior. Workpoint Today cited experts in December 2025 saying scammers had dispersed into Yangon, Mandalay and southward to Payathonzu. ISP-Myanmar reported more than 75 new scam centres across 34 townships, including relocations from border areas into central Shan State and cities such as Yangon and Mandalay. ASPI Strategist added that such cities provide empty office buildings, internet access and weak law enforcement - all the industry needs.
Arrests outside Myawaddy support this assertion. In March 2026, Myanmar authorities raided the International Hotel in Tachileik, eastern Shan State, arresting 393 foreigners - 297 Chinese, 57 Vietnamese, 38 Malaysians and one Filipino. They also seized 174 computers, nine Starlink devices and 233 phones. [26] In April, forces raided areas near Tangyan, northern Shan State, and Regina Hotel in Tachileik, arresting suspects and seizing cash and equipment. Another forest raid in Tachileik detained 126 people, most of them Chinese, and seized many Starlink devices.
By May 2026, evidence of scam group movement in the Shan State was even clearer. The junta reported the arrest of more than 110 Chinese scammers in Laikha, Mong Pan and Matman in northern Shan State. In eastern Shan State, arrests in Tachileik since March brought the cumulative number of Chinese suspects above 500; the Irrawaddy counted more than 1,300 Chinese suspects detained across Mongyai, Kunhing, Laikha and Tachileik since January 2026. Many raids occurred in zones controlled by ethnic armed groups close to China. In early May, the United Wa State Army joined the National Democratic Alliance Army in Mong La to raid scam sites, arrest 78 people and repatriate Chinese nationals. Wa media reported that more than 600 Chinese suspects had been arrested and sent back since April 2026.
Relocating out of Myanmar
The movement of scam networks outside Myanmar did not begin with the KK Park raid. UNODC’s April 2025 Inflection Point report warned that transnational crime groups in East and Southeast Asia were expanding beyond the region in response to enforcement pressure, with footprints in Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and Pacific islands. A UNODC representative compared the spread to cancer: when authorities suppress it in one area, the roots do not disappear; they migrate. The KK Park operation simply accelerated and widened an existing trend.
Cambodia
In early 2026, Thailand’s Anti-Cyber Scam Centre reported a new scam centre in Cambodia after the joint Thai-Chinese-Myanmar operation in KK Park and Shwe Kokko. The new site was said to be in Malai, Banteay Meanchey Province, about 50 kilometres from the Aranyaprathet-Poipet crossing, operated by Chinese nationals with workers including Thais, Indians and Indonesians. Thai authorities said border conflict and instability were pushing gangs away from volatile border areas and deeper into Cambodia.
According to AP, Telegram job ads targeting displaced scam workers multiplied. One centre recruiting staff to scam US clients offered remote work, while another seeking people to “search for and talk to customers about cryptocurrency” promised direct flights from Yangon to Phnom Penh for passport holders and “safe travel by car” for those without passports.
Thailand was used as a transit route. In January 2026, Thai eastern border forces arrested 16 Myanmar nationals in Aranyaprathet, Sa Kaeo, while they were being smuggled toward Cambodia. They had no passports and said they had been recruited via a Facebook cleaning-job ad offering USD 500 per month. Thai and Myanmar drivers brought them toward the border and charged 12,000 baht each.
One of the clearest examples of relocation stemmed from a Cambodian raid on a scam centre in Bavet, Svay Rieng Province, on 31 January 2026. More than 2,000 foreigners were detained, including 1,792 mainland Chinese, 177 Vietnamese, five Taiwanese and 179 Myanmar nationals. Among them was a 27-year-old woman who had worked in a restaurant in Myawaddy, moved to Mandalay after Myanmar’s October 2025 crackdown, and then was tricked by a broker with a Chinese-interpreter job paying more than USD 900. She was taken through Thailand into Cambodia on 21 December 2025 and forced to scam Japanese victims.
Testimonies also show Cambodia scam network links at multiple sites: O’Smach on the Thai border, Venus Casino in Bavet on the Vietnamese border, and Nanhai Hotel in Sihanoukville, all identified by cybercrime monitors and US government documents as sites of trafficking, forced labour and online fraud.
Poipet Telegram as a field-information network
Our investigators monitored a Thai-language Telegram group of around 8,000 members that presents itself as Poipet’s urgent-news group, its slogan “if something happens, report it immediately.” Its administrator told members not to post about services and warned that links to other groups would be banned. The administrator further noted that the group was designed to serve as an information space for people living and working in Poipet, including job seekers and workers in services, trade, online marketing and grey work.
Admin warning members about a crime incident on 17 March 2026.
The group carried everyday news, job posts and crime alerts, as well as discussions of checkpoints and police movement. Some members described skills in online marketing, ad buying, video editing and experience marketing gambling, football betting, lotteries and adult content. The posts show a labour market linking ordinary border economies to grey industries.
Example of members reporting Cambodian authorities’ inspections in Poipet around 14 June 2026.
During June 2026, when Cambodian police and immigration officials were reportedly inspecting buildings around Poipet, group members tracked the situation hour by hour. They discussed areas such as Holiday, Paragon, Century, Zone 3, Grand, Soi O, Sakia, Diamond and Star Gold. Information was often contradictory: some said officers had entered buildings, others said they were only outside, and still others criticised posts for “spinning” rumours. The exchanges show that people in the area were relying on such groups for real-time field information.
A message thanking “the two brothers” who bought food and water for people during a period when they had no support and nowhere to go.
The posts also document the effects of the raids. Members asked about short-term lodgings, lost passports, transport, storage and shipping belongings back to Thailand. One thanked two Thai men for buying food and water for those who were “without support and nowhere to go,” reflecting the vulnerability of workers displaced by enforcement operations.
A notice seeking a person accused of causing damage to others or to a company.
The platform was not simply for news and employment, however. It was also used to publish accusations and track people. On 19 March 2026, users posted notices seeking individuals accused of injuring co-workers and damaging company resources, in some cases publishing personal data and offering rewards. One alleged that a person had borrowed co-workers’ bank accounts to receive cash transfers, causing Thai police to freeze them, leaving the real owners unable to access their money.
A bounty notice found in the Poipet urgent-news group on 29 March 2026.
On 29 March 2026, another user posted a bounty notice with a photo, passport image and the personal data of a target. It offered 3,000 USDT for information, 10,000 USDT if the person’s limbs were broken, and 50,000 USDT if the person was killed. The poster also suggested reposting the information in “guarantee groups” and claimed that an escrow would be used to secure the bounty. Irrespective of the outcome, the post shows that Telegram chat groups were occasionally being used for intimidation and illegal dispute management.
Admin warning members about “black business”: “Think carefully. How many lives have already ended this way?”
The group also shared warnings about financial fraud. On 24 March 2026, the admin posted screenshots of a conversation between a deceased person’s relative and an online loan provider, with the message: “Sharing this as a lesson. Anyone doing black business, think carefully. How many lives have already ended this way?”
Cambodia appears to have become a major destination for networks pushed out of Myawaddy partly because it was already a regional scam hub. Large compounds existed in Poipet, Bavet, Sihanoukville and O’Smach; the country had casinos, buildings and financial infrastructure that could support money laundering; and grey Chinese capital and local power relations were already entrenched. When Myanmar sites came under pressure, moving into this existing system was faster than building a new base from scratch.
Laos
The Kings Romans area in Laos’ Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone has also appeared as a destination for relocation. In 2024, Thai police seized scam equipment, including ten Starlink devices, near the Mekong River in Chiang Saen, directly opposite Kings Romans. Claiming that the scammers had moved from Myanmar to open a new operation there, officials quoted the group’s principle: “if a branch is unsafe, it moves.”
In February 2026, Transborder News reported a major crackdown in Kings Romans, with more than 771 suspects from Laos, Myanmar, China and the Philippines arrested. Chinese assistant public-security minister Liu Zhongyi reportedly supervised the operation. Afterwards, grey Chinese operators and trafficking networks scattered around the Golden Triangle SEZ or crossed into Chiang Saen, Thailand.
The crackdown did not end the network; it pushed operations elsewhere in Laos. In early May 2026, Lao police raided scam bases twice in Kaysone Phomvihane City, Savannakhet Province, detaining 605 people from six nationalities in the first raid and another 101 people, all Thai nationals, in the second. Laos may not match Cambodia in scale, but Kings Romans illustrates why it can absorb relocated operations: it has casinos, buildings, utilities, weak state reach and a strategic position at a three-country border.
Africa and elsewhere
According to AP, scam workers in Myanmar heard that compound owners planned to move to Cambodia, Mauritius and Africa. GI-TOC later identified China-linked networks shifting toward Africa, with operators formerly active in Cambodia and Myanmar establishing bases there. Since late 2024, Nigerian and Ghanaian authorities have raided scam sites involving Chinese and Southeast Asian nationals, while smaller operations have been found in Zambia, Uganda, Eswatini, Angola and Egypt.
INTERPOL’s “Red Card 2.0” operation from December 2025 to January 2026 also targeted online-fraud networks in African countries, arresting 651 suspects, seizing 2,341 devices, and taking down more than 1,442 domains and servers linked to losses of more than USD 45 million. The pattern suggests that the Southeast Asian scam-compound model is spreading into regions with weak law enforcement.
Thailand
Thailand functions less as a destination for large scam compounds than as a transit route, staging point and support environment. Stronger law enforcement and military presence make the establishment of large compounds here more difficult.
Whether cases originated in Thailand are came from scam operation relocation, the frequency of arrests suggests that online-fraud activity in the region did not diminish. Rather, it changed form and dispersed. In December 2025, for example, Thai tourist police arrested a smuggling network moving Chinese and Malaysian scam workers who were fleeing Myanmar’s crackdown through Mae Sot toward a third country, and arrests inside Thailand continued during the Myawaddy crackdown: houses and condominiums used as scam bases, cross-provincial smuggling and mule-account networks were repeatedly targeted.
Initially, Thailand was one of the frontline states, alongside China, in pressuring Myanmar scam networks. Chinese pressure intensified after Chinese actor Wang Xing was abducted to KK Park in early 2025, provoking outrage online in China. Liu Zhongyi, China’s assistant minister of public security, visited Thailand and Myanmar personally and became the first senior third-country official allowed to cross the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border since Myanmar’s 2021 coup. In February 2025, Thailand cut electricity, internet and fuel supplies to five Thai-Myanmar border areas, including Myawaddy, Payathonzu and Tachileik. This was part of a broader push, led by then-interior minister Anutin Charnvirakul, to assure that Thailand did not support illegal activities in the country. As a part of this effort, it banned the export to Myanmar of 12 categories of goods, including mobile phones and electrical equipment - measures some media called the most decisive action Thailand had ever taken.
The pressure was subsequently eased, however. Assistant Professor Nuttakorn Vititanon of Chiang Mai University, a scholar of scam networks in the Mekong region and a researcher on Chulalongkorn University’s online-crime policy project, told Prachatai that political incentive declined after scam compounds in Myanmar shifted from targeting Thailand to elsewhere, especially mainland China. Another factor was border security, which has long involved complex relationships between the Thai military, ethnic armed groups and local cross-border economic interests. When local communities in Karen, Mon and Shan States faced rising fuel prices due to Thai export restrictions, armed groups and scam networks in Myanmar responded by monopolising domestic fuel supplies. Within weeks, Thailand resumed exports.
To address the problem, Tower of the GI-TOC argues that international actors, particularly frontline states, need to shift from targeting individual compounds or countries to focusing on the broader criminal networks involved. For Thailand, this means tackling the problem along all its borders simultaneously. An approach that shifts pressure from Myanmar to Laos and then Cambodia merely encourages criminal groups to relocate across borders and diversify their operations across different locations.
eng editor 1
Fri, 2026-08-28 - 13:00
* Feature
* Myawaddy
* KK Park
* Scam center
* Myanmar
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