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It seemed like a turning point in the global fight against scams. Under mounting international pressure, Myanmar’s military leadership has vowed to root out industrial-scale cyber scam centers that have taken root in the country. They began by raiding and then bombing KK Park – a notorious complex that has become a symbol of impunity in the fight against one of the world’s most lucrative criminal industries.
It is too early to say whether KK Park will be abandoned, renovated or rebuilt over time. But even if KK Park closes, it is still one of about 30 scam complexes along the Myanmar border Thailand – One sign that this crackdown may not be as deep or long-lasting as Myanmar’s military rulers would like it to be.
associated Press At least two scammers in the area were found to have continued to use Starlink to go online after spacex Announced that it has discontinued the service. And there are other signs that the scam industry is rapidly adapting: KK Park’s physical damage drove thousands of workers to other scam companies myanmar And abroad, interviews with current and former scam center workers reveal. Telegram is coming up with job ads for newly displaced workers. And work continues uninterrupted at other scam centers in Myanmar, where trafficked people from around the world are still waiting to be rescued.
“Even if you destroy buildings, if you don’t arrest the heads of the international syndicates behind it, seize their assets and put them in jail, it’s still no real action,” said Jai Kritiya, coordinator of the Civil Society Network for Human Trafficking Victims Assistance.
A turning point?
Myanmar state media announced the raid on KK Park on 20 October, followed by a week-long demolition campaign. In November, Myanmar’s military rulers promised to “root out scam activities at their roots”. State media broadcast photos of dozens of seized Starlink terminals, debris and standing soldiers. They then went after Shwe Kokko, another notorious compound that has been targeted by US authorities. SpaceX announced that it has shut down access to more than 2,500 Starlink units in Myanmar, where they have been widely used by scammers to get online. And Meta said this month it had removed 2,000 Facebook accounts used by scammers in Myanmar.
It seemed as if increased US pressure on foreign scam centers through sanctions, prosecutions and a new, high-level Scam Center Strike Force was rapidly having an impact as Myanmar prepared for national elections that have been widely criticized as a cosmetic attempt to legitimize the military’s 2021 seizure of power.
Myanmar has said that the demolition at KK Park – and raids on additional scam sites – are to ensure that criminal activity never returns. This month the government created a high-level task force to implement a “zero tolerance” policy against scams. On December 15, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar devoted a full five pages to coverage of a press conference that described the government’s aggressive efforts to crack down on fraud, and described the cyber scam as the work of foreign criminal networks that have taken root in the lawless border areas controlled by rebels.
Government officials said that as of 13 December, 413 buildings in KK Park had been “demolished” and the remaining 222 would also be removed. Detailed visual analysis of the first wave of demolition, which the government says is complete, shows that 31 structures were destroyed. At least 78 more were partially damaged, according to the Center for Information Resilience (CIR), a London-based nonprofit focused on exposing human rights violations.
Guy Fusfus, an investigator for the CIR project, Myanmar Witness, said more than half of the buildings were damaged by heavy machinery, often leaving roofs, ceilings and layers between floors intact. “There may be an intention to renovate and reuse these buildings,” he said in an email.
New satellite imagery shows that most buildings in Keck Park appeared fully or partially intact on December 4, while demolition had spread to other parts of the complex. The streets of KK Park, once home to thousands of workers and many victims of human trafficking, looked empty. Where did all those people go – and what does it bode for the future of the criminal industry FBI Says it cost Americans more than $16 billion last year – questions remain open.
“It’s not just break the windows and move on. You can’t come in and resume operations here on the same scale as before,” said Eric Heintz, a global analyst at the International Justice Mission, a Washington, D.C.-based NGO, who reviewed satellite images of the damage. “But we don’t know if that activity is going to be displaced to other locations.”
The track record of sustainable enforcement in Myanmar is poor. The raids in response to Chinese pressure earlier this year failed to stem the growth of scam compounds, according to C4ADS, a US-based nonprofit that takes a data-driven approach to conflict analysis. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, more than 7,000 scam center employees were released as part of that purge, but the scams continued.
C4ADS examined satellite imagery of 21 known scam complexes in Myawaddy township and found that 14 of them – including KK Park – had shown construction or expansion since January. Some solar panels also surfaced — a step toward energy independence that could soften the impact of a crackdown by neighboring Thailand, which has occasionally cut power.
“This continued growth of scams symbolizes the junta’s inability to rein in the industry within Myanmar,” said Michael Di Girolamo, a C4ADS analyst who focuses on cybercrime.
Analysts say some of the same people who led the raid on KK Park have profited from scams over the years. KK Park, like most scam complexes on the Thai border, operates under the protection of the Karen Border Guard Force – also known as the Karen National Army – an armed militia composed of ethnic Karen people living in eastern Myanmar, which is affiliated with the Myanmar military, according to US and European government sanctions notices.
Jason Tower, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said the crackdown in KK Park was a way for Myanmar’s military leadership to deflect pressure primarily from the US and China and continue hosting highly lucrative criminal activities. “There is no real political will to act on this,” he said.
A month after the raid on KK Park, away from the glare of government publicity, another scam center fell. On 21 November, forces from the Karen National Union, a rebel group opposing Myanmar’s military leadership, attacked a squatter compound called Shunda Park in an area controlled by pro-government militias.
“This looks like a real crackdown on crime,” Tower said.
While Myanmar state television broadcast photos of steamrollers crushing rows of scammers’ computers, the Karen National Union collected 604 mobile phones, bank cards, computers and other evidence from Shunda and handed them over to Thai authorities for investigation.
“The Myanmar military destroys everything,” KNU spokesman Padoh Saw Taw Nee told the AP. “It’s clear they don’t want people to know who is controlling this.”
Requests for comment from a Myanmar military government spokesman remained unanswered. But Global New Light of Myanmar described the claims of destruction of evidence as “astonishing”. All evidence was properly collected, the newspaper said, and “will be released appropriately in future public statements.”
Where have all the people gone?
Since the raid on KK Park, the Thai military said about 1,500 people working there have come out to Thailand through official channels – a fraction of the total workforce, which is estimated to number in the thousands.
The whereabouts of the rest are unknown. Four workers who fled KK Park told the AP that some followed company owners to other locations. He spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.
A Filipino activist said he and 20 others who jumped the fence at KK Park were captured by government-allied forces and taken to Thailand. But five Ethiopians from his team were left behind. “They wanted to move to another company,” he explained. He said he overheard his boss, who was Chinese, talking about moving the operation to Cambodia.
Another Filipina employee said her company moved dozens of employees, computers and Wi-Fi equipment to a nearby complex called Huanya to quickly get back to business in a gold investment scam targeting older American men.
Telegram is filled with recruitment offers for displaced workers. A company looking for employees to target American “clients” appeared to offer the option to work remotely from the city of Myawaddy. “Daily attendance or registration is not required,” the notice said.
A company looking for staff to “locate and chat” with cryptocurrency clients said it would arrange direct flights from Yangon, Myanmar, to Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, for those with passports and “safe transportation by car” for those without passports. “Come quickly,” the announcement urged.
Still stuck, still using Starlink
According to a foreign woman stranded there, more than 200 African workers moved from KK Park to the nearby Apollo Scam complex.
Another 100 people moved to a complex called Hengsheng Park 4, according to one employee, who says its owners would not let them go even after paying a ransom. He said the KK workers stayed for a week and then moved on. “I heard that most of them went to Cambodia, Mauritius and Africa,” he said.
He said his company still uses Starlink to get online – three units stopped working after SpaceX announced the ban, but the fourth is still working.
Starlink is still operational at the Deco Park campus, 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Keck Park, according to an employee stranded there.
The Associated Press is withholding the names of the three for security reasons. The AP asked SpaceX for comment and provided the locations of both compounds, but the company did not respond.
Pictures show the Myanmar government’s pledges to end scams did little to help a Deco Park man whose legs were left with bruises after being beaten. He sends requests almost daily: “Is there any latest news?” he recently wrote in a text message to a woman who is trying to help him escape. “I really want to go.”
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This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Associated Press and Frontline (PBS) that also includes an upcoming documentary.
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Associated Press reporter Huizhong Wu contributed from Bangkok, Thailand.
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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/.