A Rescue Op That Wasn’t?

Last month, as swathes of “scammers” with scarred and bruised bodies were rescued from scam compounds in southwestern Myanmar, little did those men and women know just how much worse things were about to get for them.

More than two weeks since their much-publicised “rescue” at least 7,000 of these people are still stuck at sites in Myanmar, with no money to fly back home and atrocious living conditions.

"We live like animals,” one man told Reuters last week. He is likely still living in that same state, since his embassy told him he would need to arrange money on his own to fly back. "I spent almost three months in the jungle," he said, alluding to his non-existent finances.

The story of his rescue is starkly opposite to that of a little-known Chinese actor, Wang Xing, who was extricated in January from another scam centre. Wang was rescued within days of allegedly being kidnapped by Chinese scammer gangs in Myanmar. He had full backing of Chinese officials and even though he appeared disoriented and had been shaved bald — he was home.

It was Wang’s dramatic rescue that pumped up the pressure on Thai and Myanmar officials to finally initiate a crackdown on scamming compounds that have been in operation since at least 2017. 

And it is that very pressure that appears to have prompted authorities to orchestrate the so-called rescue op last month, that has now caged over 7,000 people in crowded and unclean facilities in Myawaddy township, with little food.

In a special feature this week, Asia Financial’s Jim Pollard reports that the op seems like an exercise in smoke and mirrors, designed “not to eradicate transnational cybercrime… but to protect its sustainable presence” in Myanmar. “The loss of 10,000 coerced workers would not destabilise the industry,” Jim reported, citing human trafficking experts, one of whom said it was likely that the rescued people were simply “unwilling or poorly performing scammers.”

Alongside the mind-numbing human rights transgressions created by the situation, these centres are still a huge economic problem, because the scamming is still going on. 

It is a problem with serious implications for hundreds of thousands of Thai nationals who have lost their savings over the years to honey-pot schemes and cryptocurrency frauds. It is also a problem with serious implications for the West.

Observers say most of these scamming compounds were protected because of Thailand's reluctance to challenge the state-aligned militia that controlled the areas where the compounds are situated, as it could have significant impact on Myanmar’s civil war.

But with thousands of Chinese detained in (and controlling) the scam compounds, Beijing was able to finally convince Bangkok to intervene more forcefully.

Analysts, however, fear that, amid a bitter technology and trade war with Washington, Beijing now “is creating incentives for criminal groups to target the United States” instead of China.

A tale of corruption and politics

A key reason why these scamming compounds have succeeded in becoming so successful and powerful, is how deeply lucrative they are for some of the most powerful figures in Myanmar and Cambodia. The Cambodian border with Thailand is home to pockets of scam call centres in towns such as Poipet.

The illicit funds reaped from these compounds are key to the survival of the ruthless military junta ruling over Myanmar. Meanwhile, for Cambodia, these crime hubs are allegedly the “single most lucrative industry and the state-party’s core patrimonial resource”, experts say.

There is also concern about deeply entrenched corruption among Thai officials, some of whom have close ties with the Myanmar military leadership. That has spurred doubt on whether Thailand and China will mount further raids like the ones staged last month.

• New data shows China’s imports and exports fell unexpectedly in the first two months of the year.

• Taiwan and Vietnam are facing a heavy blow from trade tensions between Washington and Beijing due to their exposure to China’s US exports.

• The Trump Administration has big plans to reinvigorate America’s shipbuilding capacity and limit China’s grip on the $150 billion sector.
  

• And BlackRock has made a $22.8-billion deal to buy most of the ports controlled by Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison around the Panama Canal.