MAE SOT, Thailand (Reuters) – A group of 50 Chinese nationals plucked from scam centres in Myanmar crossed into Thailand to take a flight home, a Thai police official said on Thursday, as part of a multinational effort to repatriate 600 Chinese.
For years, criminal gangs have trafficked hundreds of thousands of people to scam compounds across Southeast Asia, including sites on the Thai-Myanmar frontier, forcing them to work in illegal online operations, the United Nations says.
The group arrived crossed into Thailand at Mae Sot, guarded by armed soldiers and military vehicles mounted with machine guns, from the town of Myawaddy in Myanmar, an area flanked by compounds that run the scams.
“All 50 have boarded the plane that the Chinese government arranged,” regional police official Raveepat Amornmuneepong told Reuters, adding that Chinese authorities will winnow victims trafficked to scam compounds from the criminals in the group.
“There are four flights today.”
China did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the repatriations.
The arrivals were part of Thailand’s renewed effort to dismantle the compounds with Beijing’s backing, following the rescue of Chinese actor Wang Xing after going missing there, having been lured with the promise of an acting job.
The plight of Wang, subsequently spirited across the border to the Myawaddy area from which he was rescued, drew widespread interest in China.
It also sparked a rare grassroots effort that collected the names of nearly 1,800 Chinese whose families said had been trafficked into Myanmar.
The junta in Myanmar, which is battling a widening civil war since its 2021 coup, is also participating in the effort, detaining more than 1,500 people in the Myawaddy area, 250 of them on Wednesday, state media said.
“Officials are working with relevant agencies to collect personal information of these individuals for prompt repatriation,” the Global Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Thursday.
Some scam centre survivors among a group of 260 who returned last week from Myawaddy and are now sheltering in a military camp said cuts and bruises on their bodies were a result of beatings and electrocution inflicted on them.
In all, about 7,000 people rescued from scam compounds in Myanmar are waiting to be transferred to Thailand, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Zaw Naing Oo, Chalinee Thirasupa, Panarat Thepgumpanat and Shoon Naing; Writing by Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Devjyot Ghoshal and Clarence Fernandez)
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