Scam centers in Myanmar blamed for swindling billions from victims across the world are expanding fast just months after a crackdown that was supposed to eradicate them, an investigation has found.
New buildings have been springing up inside the heavily guarded compounds around Myawaddy on the Thailand-Myanmar border at a dizzying pace, with others festooned with dishes for Elon Musk’s Starlink service, satellite images and drone footage show.
Starlink has gone from nowhere at the time of the crackdown in February to becoming Myanmar’s biggest Internet provider every day from July 3 until Oct. 1, according to data from the APNIC Asian regional Internet registry.
Photo: AFP
The US Congress Joint Economic Committee said it has begun an investigation into Starlink’s involvement with the centers.
It has the power to make Musk testify before it.
SpaceX, which owns Starlink, did not reply to requests for comment.
China, Thailand and Myanmar forced pro-junta Myanmar militias who protect the centers into promising to “eradicate” the compounds in February. They freed about 7,000 people — mostly Chinese citizens — from the brutal call center-style system, which the UN says runs on forced labor and human trafficking.
Many workers said that they were beaten and forced to work long hours by scam bosses who target victims across the globe with telephone, Internet and social media cons.
Starlink has topped the APNIC ranking of Myanmar Internet providers for all but one week since July 3, after first appearing at No. 56 in the list in late April.
Only weeks after the headline-grabbing releases, building work on several of the centers had started along the Moei River, which forms the frontier with Thailand.
Analysis of satellite images from Planet Labs PBC found dozens of buildings going up or being altered in the largest of the compounds, KK Park, between March and last month.
New roads and a roundabout have also been added, with the security checkpoint at its entrance greatly extended.
Drone footage also captured major construction going on, with cranes and laborers hard at work on what appeared to be large office blocks.
At least five new ferry crossings across the Moei River have also appeared to supply the centers from the Thai side, satellite images show.
Construction work has also been going on at several of the other 27 suspected scam centers in the Myawaddy cluster, analysis found, including what the US Department of the Treasury called the “notorious” Shwe Kokko centers, north of Myawaddy.
The US last month sanctioned nine people connected to Shwe Kokko and the Chinese criminal kingpin She Zhijiang (佘智江), founder of the multistory Yatai New City center there.
US Senator Maggie Hassan, the leading Democrat on the US Congressional committee, has called on Musk to block the Starlink service to the fraud centers.
“While most people have probably noticed the increasing number of scam texts, calls and e-mails, they may not know that transnational criminals halfway across the world may be perpetrating these scams by using Starlink Internet access,” Hassan said.
The senator wrote to Musk in July demanding answers to 11 questions about Starlink’s role.
Former California prosecutor Erin West, who now heads the Operation Shamrock group campaigning against the compounds, said: “It is abhorrent that an American company is enabling this to happen.”
While still a cybercrime prosecutor, she warned Starlink in July last year that the mostly Chinese crime syndicates that run the centers were using its dishes, but received no reply.
Americans are among the top targets of Southeast Asia scammers, the US Department of the Treasury said, losing an estimated US$10 billion last year, up 66 percent in 12 months.
Up to 120,000 people might be being “forced to carry out online scams” in the Myanmar centers, according to a UN report in 2023.
It said another 100,000 are likely being held in similar conditions in Cambodia.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
FIRST STAGE: Hamas has agreed to release 48 Israeli hostages in exchange for 250 ‘national security prisoners’ as well as 1,700 Gazans, but has resisted calls to disarm Israel plans to destroy what remains of Hamas’ network of tunnels under Gaza, working with US approval after its hostages are freed, it said yesterday. Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said that the operation would be conducted under an “international mechanism” led by the US. “Israel’s great challenge after the hostage release phase will be the destruction of all Hamas terrorist tunnels in Gaza,” Katz said. “I have ordered the army to prepare to carry out this mission,” he added. Hamas operates a network of tunnels under Gaza, allowing its fighters to operate out of sight of Israeli reconnaissance. Some have passed under
RSS