6 ms·

Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people

183 points by bikenaga 1y ago

randycupertino 1y ago
This is a great interactive article about what it's like to be kidnapped and forced to work in these scam centers on the Myanmar border, lured by promise of jobs people are trapped, passports confiscated, phones stolen, 16-hour workdays spent defrauding victims online, cultivating fake relationships and pressuring them into investment or romance scams: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/myanmar-cyber-scam.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/my...
- EvanAnderson 1y ago
  I got a lot less snarky in my responses to scam text messages when I learned about the forced labor aspect. I just block the sender and go on, versus trying to bait them and waste their time. For awhile I was asking "Is there someone I can contact for you?", but then I got worried that would get somebody a beating.
  - Mistletoe 1y ago
    “I love you” works well, because even if they are a piece of shit now, they need to hear it. No one is born bad. I’ve actually gotten them to break character with stuff like that sometimes.
    - datameta 1y ago
      I agree with the sentiment, but that phrase is too strong to be used in an unfamiliar setting and won't land the same way outside of the anglosphere
      - xandrius 1y ago
        Yeah, I'd go for something like "despite what you have to do, you still matter".
  - viraptor 1y ago
    > versus trying to bait them and waste their time. At least that prevents someone else getting scammed sooner.
    - EvanAnderson 1y ago
      I read somewhere about the operators receiving beatings when they failed to get a promising "lead" to produce. I don't want to give the appearance of being a promising lead anymore.
- kuangtsao 1y ago
  I used to work in this industry. It pretty much all started with this group of 'Fujian bosses' who set up these 'scam parks.' They were trying to wash money back to China and came up with all sorts of ways to do it, usually by pretending to be online gambling companies. The people actually doing the scams are on the Thai border, in Myanmar, and Cambodia. The IT and tech staff... well, some are in the parks, but a lot of them are in Taiwan. (I've also heard some are in Japan, singapore, malaysia and the UK). The money gets laundered through all kinds of channels into different tax havens. It might pass through Taiwan—'cause, you know, China can't touch it there and the money looks clean—and then it goes on to China or Singapore... basically, right into those bosses' pockets. Inside those parks, there's literally no law. I'm talking beatings, slavery, human trafficking, forcing people into prostitution, and death... that's just everyday stuff there. As for me, I was working in Taiwan, so the worst thing that happened to me was just not getting the high pay they promised. Other than that, I was fine. This is all stuff I either heard from other people in the business or saw firsthand.
  - ValentineC 1y ago
    > The money gets laundered through all kinds of channels into different tax havens. It might pass through Taiwan—'cause, you know, China can't touch it there and the money looks clean—and then it goes on to China or Singapore... basically, right into those bosses' pockets. Singapore cracked down on a huge part of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Singapore_money_laundering_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Singapore_money_launderin... Funny how the banks let these money launderers go on with their activities for years, most likely because they paid the banks their share of fees and commissions.
    - kuangtsao 1y ago
      they use crypto for part of the money, too. I even heard some of the guys in the industry back then got paid in USDT.
    - noobermin 1y ago
      That's alright, when one falls, 3 others from China will be come in and restart the scheme anew.
- dougb5 1y ago
  I also recommend the Scam Factory podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cfjCS28vx1MVoukNjpINt https://open.spotify.com/show/2cfjCS28vx1MVoukNjpINt
- ashanoko 1y ago
  [dead]
- mizzao 1y ago
  This has been going on for a while and they didn't do anything about it. What changed?
  - gsanghera 1y ago
    They probably became aware of the size of the pie, and decided to go for it themselves.. I know different country, but similar operation. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/14/bitcoin-doj-chen-zhi-pig-butchering-scam.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/14/bitcoin-doj-chen-zhi-pig-but...
- vismit2000 1y ago
  http://archive.is/WS34i http://archive.is/WS34i
mouse_ 1y ago
What's Grandma supposed to do with all those Google Play gift cards now?
- Hackbraten 1y ago
  Do NOT redeem!
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- sysguest 1y ago
  idk maybe google is somewhat responsible here? either their fraud-detection isn't working, or they're turning blind-eye here for profit?
  - Nextgrid 1y ago
    It's not actually the scammers that are redeeming the gift cards - instead they are in turn reselling the codes on marketplaces (to legitimate customers) for a small loss as a way of laundering them. From Google's perspective - someone bought a gift card in the US, and redeemed it somewhere else in the US, aka the expected behavior of legitimate gift card usage.
    - HeatrayEnjoyer 1y ago
      Google has enough metadata to graph and deduce which are scams.
      - sysguest 1y ago
        this > From Google's perspective - someone bought a gift card in the US, and redeemed it somewhere else in the US hmm really? is this coming from a google PR firm or what? if that's the google's "perspective", unfortunately that means google is really technically inept or morally corrupt enough to watch a lot of people, including Americans, go thru the torture and being incinerated. if Google receives a lot of "I was scammed into this" from whoever bought the giftcard, doesn't google have the responsibility to ask the giftcard user where they got that redeem code from? At least warn them several times, and then cut those buyers too? that's the worst justification of a big corp imaginable -- I mean, that alone justifies a congressional hearing, and could mount to a deluge of negative media press: "how google has skin in the Cambodian scams"
lysace 1y ago
I heard that both sides of the ongoing civil war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_civil_war_(2021%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_civil_war_(2021%E2%80%...) work with these criminal organizations to secure foreign revenue for weapons purchases - but that it is primarily a junta-driven thing. And that the people running them come from PRC Chinese organized crime (triads).
- programmertote 1y ago
  Wish I could give your comment 10 more upvotes for visibility. This is Myanmar military trying to do field work for China. China is the one who allowed these militias to thrive in the border areas and they have been arming them for decades. This particular operation happens in Myawaddy, which is in lower eastern part of Myanmar close to Thailand, but not in northeastern Myanmar closer to China, because Myanmar military dare only touch the militia there. It helps that the accused collaborators of these scam centers in the lower east part of Myanmar are Kayin ethnic militia, who--unlike Wa or Kokang--aren't as Chinese, and thus, China doesn't care. Also, China is now 100% backing the military regime (which staged a coup around 2021) in Myanmar, so this is like shooting two birds with one stone (i.e., get rid of scam centers for China, while helping Myanmar's brutal military to remove an income source of one of the non-ethnically Chinese militia). The military dares not assault the northeastern militias like Wa [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Wa_State_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Wa_State_Army ], Kokang militia [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_National_Democratic_Alliance_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_National_Democratic_Al... ] because these guys are truly backed (and enabled) by China. There was a raid by Myanmar military in northeastern part (close to China) about a year ago [ https://www.rfa.org/english/myanmar/2024/11/20/shan-state-wa-online-scammers-china/ https://www.rfa.org/english/myanmar/2024/11/20/shan-state-wa... ] and that was backed by China. Otherwise, Myanmar military dares not do that. Basically, China is getting what it sowed and now that its citizens are being impacted, it's asking its lapdog, Burmese military, to do the clean-up for them selectively.
  - maxglute 1y ago
    > now that its citizens are being impacted PRC citizens were always impacted, these scam centers literally started (by twnese org crime) to target mainland retirees. PRC would love for Junta to dismantle Kokang / northern scam centers but Junta couldn't because domestic factional power issues vs Northern states. The TLDR is scam centers are protected by pro Junta Kokang faction (BGF), so PRC got tired of Junta waffling and decided to support anti Junta three brotherhood alliance (aka rebels) who went HAM on the scam centers while PRC did military exercises to tell juntas to fuck off and understand PRC willing to patronize other internal players if junta doesn't play ball. Last year's 1027 operation only happened because PRC lost patience with Juntas and now Juntas more keen to help PRC deal vs scam centers (well at least performatively since they still need it for funding) because they know if they did nothing PRC will shop around and empower other players during civil war.
sbarre 1y ago
Seems like we're hearing a lot about this lately, it must have gotten real bad if there's suddenly all this movement to crack down on it.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- fbu 1y ago
  Maybe some governments are sponsoring these activities near the border of a political rival. Like they did during the golden triangle era...
- yieldcrv 1y ago
  Article is from the 20th so you're probably hearing about the same specific action
  - verdverm 1y ago
    There were related articles on the kidnapping / hostage like experience of some expats a few months back iirc
  - trallnag 1y ago
    Probably the Belarusian woman who ended up kidnapped, murdered, and dismembered in Myanmar.
cruelness523 1y ago
As early as a few years ago, these people were engaged in fraudulent activities in Southeast Asia. Most of them were Chinese, but the Chinese government was too soft and did not take effective measures against the fraud. As a result, for a long time, these people did not receive the approval of the dispute until a Korean appeared.
- junaru 1y ago
  Source please on the Chinese and Korean claims.
  - yorwba 1y ago
    In 2021, the Chinese government went so far as to require all citizens in northern Myanmar to return to their hometowns in a attempt to combat the scams. It can hardly be called soft. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3141474/beijings-crackdown-online-fraud-forces-citizens-leave-myanmars https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3141474/beij...
- nextworddev 1y ago
  Wasn’t that it was soft, it was actually actively assisting the ops
  - throw4r5u5ree 1y ago
    Maybe some corrupt low-level official, but the national government was definitely trying to crack down.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
m101 1y ago
"It [starlink] does not have licensed operations in Myanmar, but at least hundreds of terminals have been smuggled into the Southeast Asian nation." So how do starlinks work in Myanmar if it's not licensed?
- kmeisthax 1y ago
  My assumption is that either the terminals don't check, or the organized criminals paid a guy to hack the terminals to think they're in (insert licensed East Asian country here); and SpaceX specifically didn't adjust their constellation orbits to avoid Myanmar so that you can get a signal with a terminal that doesn't care about radio emissions law.
- crishoj 1y ago
  That is a good question. https://starlink.com/map https://starlink.com/map shows neither Myanmar, Thailand or Laos having coverage. Perhaps they were using the "roam" version (https://starlink.com/roam https://starlink.com/roam), which seems to work pretty much anywhere.
  - waitforjames 1y ago
    I manage a maritime starlink installation. The geofence rules are very odd. Starlink is not licensed in either Cambodia or Thailand. When my ship was in Cambodia starlink automatically disconnected, but when we sailed into Thailand it came back online - despite both countries not having starlink available.
- crishoj 1y ago
  SpaceX acknowledged the use that has apparently moved to cut service for some scam camps: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2e5541d1o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2e5541d1o
radicaldreamer 1y ago
The vast majority of these are going to turn into AI bots shortly if they aren’t going strong already. The human (slave) in the loop will be there for big fish or to finish the job.
- xandrius 1y ago
  This sounds like an absolutely great win for humans then. Go AI!
melbourne_mat 1y ago
Shutdown because they either stopped paying their dues or didn't agree to the recent increase
- milkshakes 1y ago
  they kidnapped the wrong person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Wang_Xing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Wang_Xing
incrudible 1y ago
This facility was in the news recently. https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/southeast-asia/myanmar-belarus-vera-kravtsova-bangkok-b2850608.html https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/southeast-asia/myanmar-be...
agmyintmyatoo 1y ago
The culprit organization works closely with the junta, and they became active after the coup. (https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/myanmars-crisis-the-world/thousands-abandon-myanmar-scam-hub-after-juntas-raid-rehearsal.html https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/myanmars-crisis-the-world/tho...)

183 points by bikenaga 1y ago

This is a great interactive article about what it's like to be kidnapped and forced to work in these scam centers on the Myanmar border, lured by promise of jobs people are trapped, passports confiscated, phones stolen, 16-hour workdays spent defrauding victims online, cultivating fake relationships and pressuring them into investment or romance scams: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/myanmar-cyber-scam.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/my...

EvanAnderson 1y ago
I got a lot less snarky in my responses to scam text messages when I learned about the forced labor aspect. I just block the sender and go on, versus trying to bait them and waste their time. For awhile I was asking "Is there someone I can contact for you?", but then I got worried that would get somebody a beating.
- Mistletoe 1y ago
  “I love you” works well, because even if they are a piece of shit now, they need to hear it. No one is born bad. I’ve actually gotten them to break character with stuff like that sometimes.
  - datameta 1y ago
    I agree with the sentiment, but that phrase is too strong to be used in an unfamiliar setting and won't land the same way outside of the anglosphere
    - xandrius 1y ago
      Yeah, I'd go for something like "despite what you have to do, you still matter".
- viraptor 1y ago
  > versus trying to bait them and waste their time. At least that prevents someone else getting scammed sooner.
  - EvanAnderson 1y ago
    I read somewhere about the operators receiving beatings when they failed to get a promising "lead" to produce. I don't want to give the appearance of being a promising lead anymore.
kuangtsao 1y ago
I used to work in this industry. It pretty much all started with this group of 'Fujian bosses' who set up these 'scam parks.' They were trying to wash money back to China and came up with all sorts of ways to do it, usually by pretending to be online gambling companies. The people actually doing the scams are on the Thai border, in Myanmar, and Cambodia. The IT and tech staff... well, some are in the parks, but a lot of them are in Taiwan. (I've also heard some are in Japan, singapore, malaysia and the UK). The money gets laundered through all kinds of channels into different tax havens. It might pass through Taiwan—'cause, you know, China can't touch it there and the money looks clean—and then it goes on to China or Singapore... basically, right into those bosses' pockets. Inside those parks, there's literally no law. I'm talking beatings, slavery, human trafficking, forcing people into prostitution, and death... that's just everyday stuff there. As for me, I was working in Taiwan, so the worst thing that happened to me was just not getting the high pay they promised. Other than that, I was fine. This is all stuff I either heard from other people in the business or saw firsthand.
- ValentineC 1y ago
  > The money gets laundered through all kinds of channels into different tax havens. It might pass through Taiwan—'cause, you know, China can't touch it there and the money looks clean—and then it goes on to China or Singapore... basically, right into those bosses' pockets. Singapore cracked down on a huge part of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Singapore_money_laundering_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Singapore_money_launderin... Funny how the banks let these money launderers go on with their activities for years, most likely because they paid the banks their share of fees and commissions.
  - kuangtsao 1y ago
    they use crypto for part of the money, too. I even heard some of the guys in the industry back then got paid in USDT.
  - noobermin 1y ago
    That's alright, when one falls, 3 others from China will be come in and restart the scheme anew.
dougb5 1y ago
I also recommend the Scam Factory podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cfjCS28vx1MVoukNjpINt https://open.spotify.com/show/2cfjCS28vx1MVoukNjpINt
ashanoko 1y ago
[dead]
mizzao 1y ago
This has been going on for a while and they didn't do anything about it. What changed?
- gsanghera 1y ago
  They probably became aware of the size of the pie, and decided to go for it themselves.. I know different country, but similar operation. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/14/bitcoin-doj-chen-zhi-pig-butchering-scam.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/14/bitcoin-doj-chen-zhi-pig-but...
vismit2000 1y ago
http://archive.is/WS34i http://archive.is/WS34i

mouse_ 1y ago

What's Grandma supposed to do with all those Google Play gift cards now?

Hackbraten 1y ago
Do NOT redeem!
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
sysguest 1y ago
idk maybe google is somewhat responsible here? either their fraud-detection isn't working, or they're turning blind-eye here for profit?
- Nextgrid 1y ago
  It's not actually the scammers that are redeeming the gift cards - instead they are in turn reselling the codes on marketplaces (to legitimate customers) for a small loss as a way of laundering them. From Google's perspective - someone bought a gift card in the US, and redeemed it somewhere else in the US, aka the expected behavior of legitimate gift card usage.
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 1y ago
    Google has enough metadata to graph and deduce which are scams.
    - sysguest 1y ago
      this > From Google's perspective - someone bought a gift card in the US, and redeemed it somewhere else in the US hmm really? is this coming from a google PR firm or what? if that's the google's "perspective", unfortunately that means google is really technically inept or morally corrupt enough to watch a lot of people, including Americans, go thru the torture and being incinerated. if Google receives a lot of "I was scammed into this" from whoever bought the giftcard, doesn't google have the responsibility to ask the giftcard user where they got that redeem code from? At least warn them several times, and then cut those buyers too? that's the worst justification of a big corp imaginable -- I mean, that alone justifies a congressional hearing, and could mount to a deluge of negative media press: "how google has skin in the Cambodian scams"

lysace 1y ago

I heard that both sides of the ongoing civil war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_civil_war_(2021%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_civil_war_(2021%E2%80%...) work with these criminal organizations to secure foreign revenue for weapons purchases - but that it is primarily a junta-driven thing. And that the people running them come from PRC Chinese organized crime (triads).

programmertote 1y ago
Wish I could give your comment 10 more upvotes for visibility. This is Myanmar military trying to do field work for China. China is the one who allowed these militias to thrive in the border areas and they have been arming them for decades. This particular operation happens in Myawaddy, which is in lower eastern part of Myanmar close to Thailand, but not in northeastern Myanmar closer to China, because Myanmar military dare only touch the militia there. It helps that the accused collaborators of these scam centers in the lower east part of Myanmar are Kayin ethnic militia, who--unlike Wa or Kokang--aren't as Chinese, and thus, China doesn't care. Also, China is now 100% backing the military regime (which staged a coup around 2021) in Myanmar, so this is like shooting two birds with one stone (i.e., get rid of scam centers for China, while helping Myanmar's brutal military to remove an income source of one of the non-ethnically Chinese militia). The military dares not assault the northeastern militias like Wa [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Wa_State_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Wa_State_Army ], Kokang militia [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_National_Democratic_Alliance_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_National_Democratic_Al... ] because these guys are truly backed (and enabled) by China. There was a raid by Myanmar military in northeastern part (close to China) about a year ago [ https://www.rfa.org/english/myanmar/2024/11/20/shan-state-wa-online-scammers-china/ https://www.rfa.org/english/myanmar/2024/11/20/shan-state-wa... ] and that was backed by China. Otherwise, Myanmar military dares not do that. Basically, China is getting what it sowed and now that its citizens are being impacted, it's asking its lapdog, Burmese military, to do the clean-up for them selectively.
- maxglute 1y ago
  > now that its citizens are being impacted PRC citizens were always impacted, these scam centers literally started (by twnese org crime) to target mainland retirees. PRC would love for Junta to dismantle Kokang / northern scam centers but Junta couldn't because domestic factional power issues vs Northern states. The TLDR is scam centers are protected by pro Junta Kokang faction (BGF), so PRC got tired of Junta waffling and decided to support anti Junta three brotherhood alliance (aka rebels) who went HAM on the scam centers while PRC did military exercises to tell juntas to fuck off and understand PRC willing to patronize other internal players if junta doesn't play ball. Last year's 1027 operation only happened because PRC lost patience with Juntas and now Juntas more keen to help PRC deal vs scam centers (well at least performatively since they still need it for funding) because they know if they did nothing PRC will shop around and empower other players during civil war.

sbarre 1y ago

Seems like we're hearing a lot about this lately, it must have gotten real bad if there's suddenly all this movement to crack down on it.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
fbu 1y ago
Maybe some governments are sponsoring these activities near the border of a political rival. Like they did during the golden triangle era...
yieldcrv 1y ago
Article is from the 20th so you're probably hearing about the same specific action
- verdverm 1y ago
  There were related articles on the kidnapping / hostage like experience of some expats a few months back iirc
- trallnag 1y ago
  Probably the Belarusian woman who ended up kidnapped, murdered, and dismembered in Myanmar.

cruelness523 1y ago

As early as a few years ago, these people were engaged in fraudulent activities in Southeast Asia. Most of them were Chinese, but the Chinese government was too soft and did not take effective measures against the fraud. As a result, for a long time, these people did not receive the approval of the dispute until a Korean appeared.

junaru 1y ago
Source please on the Chinese and Korean claims.
- yorwba 1y ago
  In 2021, the Chinese government went so far as to require all citizens in northern Myanmar to return to their hometowns in a attempt to combat the scams. It can hardly be called soft. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3141474/beijings-crackdown-online-fraud-forces-citizens-leave-myanmars https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3141474/beij...
nextworddev 1y ago
Wasn’t that it was soft, it was actually actively assisting the ops
- throw4r5u5ree 1y ago
  Maybe some corrupt low-level official, but the national government was definitely trying to crack down.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

m101 1y ago

"It [starlink] does not have licensed operations in Myanmar, but at least hundreds of terminals have been smuggled into the Southeast Asian nation." So how do starlinks work in Myanmar if it's not licensed?

kmeisthax 1y ago
My assumption is that either the terminals don't check, or the organized criminals paid a guy to hack the terminals to think they're in (insert licensed East Asian country here); and SpaceX specifically didn't adjust their constellation orbits to avoid Myanmar so that you can get a signal with a terminal that doesn't care about radio emissions law.
crishoj 1y ago
That is a good question. https://starlink.com/map https://starlink.com/map shows neither Myanmar, Thailand or Laos having coverage. Perhaps they were using the "roam" version (https://starlink.com/roam https://starlink.com/roam), which seems to work pretty much anywhere.
- waitforjames 1y ago
  I manage a maritime starlink installation. The geofence rules are very odd. Starlink is not licensed in either Cambodia or Thailand. When my ship was in Cambodia starlink automatically disconnected, but when we sailed into Thailand it came back online - despite both countries not having starlink available.
crishoj 1y ago
SpaceX acknowledged the use that has apparently moved to cut service for some scam camps: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2e5541d1o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2e5541d1o

radicaldreamer 1y ago

The vast majority of these are going to turn into AI bots shortly if they aren’t going strong already. The human (slave) in the loop will be there for big fish or to finish the job.

xandrius 1y ago
This sounds like an absolutely great win for humans then. Go AI!

melbourne_mat 1y ago

Shutdown because they either stopped paying their dues or didn't agree to the recent increase

milkshakes 1y ago
they kidnapped the wrong person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Wang_Xing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Wang_Xing

incrudible 1y ago

This facility was in the news recently. https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/southeast-asia/myanmar-belarus-vera-kravtsova-bangkok-b2850608.html https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/southeast-asia/myanmar-be...

agmyintmyatoo 1y ago

The culprit organization works closely with the junta, and they became active after the coup. (https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/myanmars-crisis-the-world/thousands-abandon-myanmar-scam-hub-after-juntas-raid-rehearsal.html https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/myanmars-crisis-the-world/tho...)