Local armed forces in northern Myanmar recently launched a rebellion on the pretext of "clearing out a fraud park." China also took the opportunity to repatriate a large number of fraudsters, and groups of suspects were escorted away in many places. At the same time, why is there no movement in Myawaddy, located in eastern Myanmar and where the KK Park is located?
Image : Satellite map taken in September this year; the KK Park located on the Thai-Myanmar border is clearly visible and is continuing to expand. Image source: Maxar Technologies provided by EUSI
For two full months, Zhang Mo (pseudonym) was locked in a small dark room without windows, his feet cuffed and unable to move, his body covered with scars from being beaten with sticks. During this period, someone came to talk to him and asked him "Have you thought it over?" and "Do you want to go back to work properly?" He did not respond directly and was beaten and kicked again.
Last July, he received a high-paying job overseas and lowered his guard because the person who introduced him was a fellow villager from Northeast China. He originally thought that his workplace was in Thailand, but was lured across the river by human traffickers and taken to the "KK Park" in Myanmar, where he was forced to engage in telecommunications fraud.
Zhang Mo was locked in a room with no light, shouting that he had to pay compensation and leave. Inside, he could not see the sunlight and could not tell the difference between day and night. He could only lie on the floor or on the blood-stained bed all day, waiting for the next time he would be interrogated. This type of small dark room, also called a "military station" by park managers, is the nightmare of all fraud workers.
“That thing at the military station… is where they brainwash you,” Zhang Mo told DW. As long as their performance was insufficient, they were disobedient or often caused trouble, they might be beaten and then locked up in a military station, where they would be treated in an "inhumane" manner, including being forced to eat smelly rice.
Like Zhang Mo, there are many Chinese who were deceived into going to Myanmar through the introduction of acquaintances or fellow villagers. According to statistics from the Thai police in August, up to 70,000 Chinese are sold through Thailand every year to the location of the KK Park - Myawaddy, a city in eastern Myanmar, separated from Thailand by only a river.
In recent months, the Chinese government has launched a series of actions to crack down on fraud crimes. The hot searches on Weibo are filled with news about fraudsters being deported, their ringleaders being arrested, and family members recording confession videos. But coming and going, these developments are limited to northern Myanmar and have "not had much impact at all" on Myawaddy on the east side. Zhang Mo said: "The mainlanders still can't control it, they really can't control it... (for) the KK Park, there is still no solution."
Myawaddy: How did the kingdom of scams rise?
On Google Maps, if you search for "KK Park Thailand Pilgrimage Site" in traditional Chinese, you will see a location point that says "permanently closed". It is located within the border of Thailand and is separated from Myanmar by only a narrow Moei River.
Looking south from the high point of Mae Sot County on the Thai side, you can see Myawaddy, Myanmar, across the way. The large area of office-like buildings that comes into view is the KK Park. Compared with the surrounding barren mountains and wilderness, it looks particularly abrupt.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. "There are about 20 large industrial parks like this in Myawaddy and along the Thai-Myanmar border, slaughtering pigs on an industrial scale," said Jason Tower, director of the Myanmar Program at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).
These parks are almost entirely funded by illegal funds from Chinese criminal organizations; initially, they were mainly concentrated in northern Myanmar bordering China's Yunnan Province, but began to expand their territory in 2016 and gradually moved to the Thai-Myanmar border.
China's proud "Belt and Road" initiative has also become a criminal channel for fraud gangs. At the end of 2017, Beijing announced for the first time the establishment of the "China-Myanmar Economic Corridor" and signed a multi-billion dollar memorandum of understanding on infrastructure cooperation with the then Aung San Suu Kyi regime.
Since then, individuals or organizations claiming to represent the Chinese Overseas Chinese Business Association or Chinese-funded enterprises have successively shouted slogans in response to the "Belt and Road Initiative" and began to build casinos and hotels in Myawaddy. One of the plans, the “Myanmar Asia-Pacific International Smart Industrial New City” (abbreviated as “Asia-Pacific New City”), was widely reported by official Chinese Communist Party agencies at the time.
Unexpectedly, "over time, they have become more and more terrible." Tal told DW that these "businessmen" started from providing offshore casinos for Chinese in 2019 to starting to "kidnap Chinese, selling people to fraud parks, using forced labour to defraud people around the world."
Many victims originally thought they were going to Thailand to work, but were lured to Myanmar by human traffickers after landing.
As the situation on the border gradually got out of control, the Myanmar government began to face up to the problem and demanded that China make a statement. The Chinese Embassy in Myanmar issued a statement in 2020, emphasizing that the Asia-Pacific New City plan "has nothing to do with the Belt and Road Initiative" and supports Myanmar's investigation into this in accordance with the law. The following year, the person in charge of the program, She Zhijiang, was arrested and is still being detained in Thailand.
However supervision from Myanmar came to an abrupt end due to a coup. In 2021, a military coup broke out in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted, and a military government headed by Min Aung Hlaing came to power, and the fraud industry revived. Tal bluntly stated: "The Myanmar military is a key enabler of these criminal activities."
Myawaddy is currently controlled by the Karen Border Guard, which is loyal to the Myanmar military. They are accused of cooperating with Chinese criminals and accepting bribes from park owners to provide protection. Several victims who were deceived into the KK Park pointed out to DW that they saw the "Karen Border Guard Force" badge on the uniforms of the soldiers who escorted them in and out of the park.
Does China have to take strong measures to save face?
"That place (Myawaddy) is the darkest," said Mother Wang from China. Her two sons were both victims of a fraud park in Myanmar. In October this year, the eldest son was rescued from northern Myanmar and returned home, while the younger son is still trapped in Myawaddy and has been out of contact for nearly two months.
Before he lost contact, the youngest son sent a message to Wang’s mother saying, “Don’t contact me. If I’m found out, I’ll be beaten to death… The company beat a man to death right in front of us.” Wang’s mother told DW that Considering her son's safety, she dared not act rashly and could only passively wait for a response while seeking assistance from the Chinese police.
However, after some of the victims' families reported the case to the local public security bureau, they were "passed around the bush". With nowhere else to turn, they decided to turn to the media, hoping to put pressure on the authorities through public opinion. As reports increase, Chinese people's dissatisfaction with cross-border telecommunications fraud is gradually boiling over. "This is a matter of life and death. Everyone was deceived and taken to that place in Myanmar, and some were beaten to death accidentally." Mother Pan, a family member of another Chinese victim, told DW.
This wave of discontent has also spread overseas. According to a report by the United States Institute of Peace, as of the beginning of last year, human trafficking in Myanmar's fraud industry had spread to more than 46 countries; in terms of investment fraud, the cumulative amount of defrauded victims in the United States alone has reached billions of dollars in recent years.
“China is under tremendous pressure right now ... and wants this to end,” Tal said. In May this year, Beijing called on the Myanmar military government to clear out the fraud park, but in the following three months, not only did Myanmar not take any action, but the crime park continued to expand, and "construction in the Thai-Myanmar border area is still continuing."
Out of frustration, China began to take unilateral action in September. However, within a few months of China's vow to crack down on it, a fraud park in northern Myanmar attempted to relocate, during which more than 60 Chinese citizens were killed along the way, an incident known as the "1020 Incident." "This is very embarrassing for the Chinese government. This is happening on its doorstep," Tal said, hinting at why China gave the "green light" to the current civil war in northern Myanmar.
The civil war in Myanmar broke out on 27 October, when local ethnic armed organizations formed the "Three Brothers Alliance" and launched a joint military operation with the slogan of "eradicating cyber fraud" and "overthrowing the Myanmar military government." Subsequently, Ming Xuechang, one of the leaders of the fraud group in northern Myanmar, committed suicide out of fear of punishment. His three children were arrested and handed over to the Chinese police. Confession videos of other family members of the criminal leaders were also circulated online, shouting: "Our family must never engage in fraud again." Telecom fraud activities must not harm the Chinese people again. This time the Chinese government is determined not to stop.”
Tal analyzed that the goal of the Three Brothers Alliance to eradicate the fraud park coincides with Beijing's. "China has more or less used the resistance armed forces in Kokang to put pressure on Min Aung Hlaing and put forward a very specific timetable for the crackdown." .
In mid-December, both the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Myanmar military spokespersons stated that with China's assistance and mediation, Myanmar had reached a temporary ceasefire agreement with local armed elements and further negotiations were expected to be held at the end of the month.
Why is there no anti-fraud action in Myawaddy?
From the constant fighting to the cooling of conflicts, the fraud industry in northern Myanmar was hit hard during the chaos. However, there was no similar crackdown in Myawaddy, located in the southeast, and all the industrial parks continued to operate as usual.
Tal believes that in terms of geographical location, China will naturally strike the China-Myanmar border first, which is closest to itself and has the greatest influence, but this does not mean that the eastern part of Myanmar has not felt any impact. He pointed out that under pressure from Beijing, it was Min Aung Hlaing himself who later sneaked into the Kokang region in northern Myanmar to arrest border guards. "I think this is significant. Min Aung Hlaing is now dismantling his own border forces. All of a sudden, the safety and security of the border forces is in question," Tal said, adding that this is the latest in a series of changes to the border security system, which is responsible for the Myawaddy area's insecurity.
However Myawaddy is located on the border between Thailand and Myanmar. China cannot take drastic measures as it does on its own border, but must cooperate with Thai officials.
Earlier this year, China established transnational law enforcement mechanisms with Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, but no breakthrough progress was made. “I think that’s the lesson from Kokang. I hope the Chinese government now clearly understands that the only way to get the Myanmar military to resolve these problems is to exert maximum pressure.”
Tal told DW that it would be impossible to ask the Karen Border Guard to open the gate without sufficient leverage, because "cracking down on these fraud gangs is not in their (Myanmar's military government's) interest at all," unless, as in northern Myanmar, This threatens Min Aung Hlaing’s “valuable assets on the Chinese border”.
The victim's lingering sense of powerlessness
In the absence of transnational cooperation, these "one-off, sporadic suppression operations" are unlikely to eradicate criminal organizations. Tal said that amid the turmoil in northern Myanmar, the leaders of these fraud gangs have begun to shift their bases to the Thai-Myanmar border and other Southeast Asian countries such as Laos and Cambodia.
When fraudsters go unpunished, it causes secondary psychological harm to the victims. After returning to his original life, Zhang Mo, 35 years old this year, is still struggling with the lingering trauma. “I think about that place all the time,” he said. Before leaving the "military station", Zhang Mo was questioned whether he had hidden his cell phone. Before he could say anything, he only felt countless punches falling. He was beaten up and seriously injured, and stayed in the hospital for nearly a month.
Earlier this year, he was finally released after paying nearly 100,000 yuan in compensation, ending his 10-month nightmare. After returning to China, the fellow villager who deceived him to Myanmar contacted him through WeChat for a while. After confirming that he did not call the police, he immediately disappeared and blocked his account.
"He showed me the worst side of society, which is really disgusting," Zhang Mo said. He once tried to do a web search on this fellow villager and found that he had changed his name from "Yang Qingyu" to "Yang Linan" but he never called the police because he thought it would not help. "How can you file a case? There are many people who have been cheated in this world. Some people have even been cheated out of tens of millions. Don't you still not get it back?"
Zhang Mo helplessly told DW: "I definitely want to bring them to justice. It's just an idea, a small effort, it's useless."
19 December 2023
