Thailand to repatriate thousands more Myanmar scam centre workers

Thailand said Friday it had agreed with Myanmar and China to repatriate thousands of alleged scam centre workers stranded in camps at the Thai-Myanmar border, part of a crackdown on transnational crime.

Some 5,000 Chinese nationals will be sent home at a rate of 1,000 a week, starting next week, Thai foreign ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura told reporters.

The announcement came after a meeting in Bangkok between Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa, Chinese Assistant Minister for Public Security Liu Zhongyi and Myanmar’s deputy home affairs minister Aung Kyaw Kyaw.

Cyberscam operations, which have thrived in Myanmar’s lawless border areas for several years, lure foreign workers with promises of high-paying jobs but hold them hostage and force them into committing online fraud.

Under pressure from key ally Beijing, Myanmar has cracked down on some of the compounds, freeing around 7,000 workers from more than two dozen countries.

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The freed workers are now languishing in sometimes squalid conditions in holding camps near the Thai border while officials organise their repatriation.

Last week some 600 Chinese nationals were returned from Myanmar through Thailand — and escorted off the plane in handcuffs by police on landing.

Many workers say they were trafficked or tricked into taking the work and suffer beatings and abuse, but the government in China has so far treated them as criminal suspects.

The remaining 2,000 foreign nationals, including Africans, would go through usual Thai screening processes before being handed to their respective embassies for possible repatriation.

The United Nations estimates that as many as 120,000 people — many of them Chinese men — may be working in Myanmar scam centres against their will.