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Myanmar
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Exclusive | Inside the Chinese-run crime hubs of Myanmar that are conning the world: ‘we can kill you here’

  • From Shwe Kokko to KK Park, a slew of brutal criminal enterprises now dot the Moei River that forms Myanmar’s border with Thailand
  • Survivors, ensnared by promises of legitimate work, spoke to This Week in Asia of trafficking, torture – and being forced to defraud strangers online

Reading Time:8 minutes
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The dock at “Gate 25” north of Myanmar’s Myawaddy township. Even the eight victims who spoke to This Week in Asia about the severe physical abuse they endured inside the compound did not know its true name. Photo: Alastair McCready
Alastair McCreadyin Mae Sot, ThailandandAllegra Mendelsonin Mae Sot, Thailand

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.

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*The names of all the victims have been changed throughout and some details omitted to prevent identification.

“Run!” was the only instruction given to Filipinos Max and Jane, ending their six-month ordeal of forced online scamming in Myanmar.

A day into their freedom, sitting at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Mae Sot – the same Thai border town they were trafficked through late last year – the pair recalled their nervous final moments as a boat edged across a narrow neck of river towards safety.

Once on the Thai bank, their chaperones told them “all you need to do is run,” Jane said – so that’s what they did, luggage in hand. Max, still shaken from the experience, let Jane speak to This Week in Asia on his behalf.

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They had arrived from the Philippines separately, in December and January, after answering adverts for well-paid jobs in Thailand.
A busy market in Mae Sot on the Thailand-Myanmar border. Photo: Alastair McCready
A busy market in Mae Sot on the Thailand-Myanmar border. Photo: Alastair McCready
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