Myanmar border militia emerges as nexus in regional scam network

An ethnic minority militia force based on Myanmar’s border with Thailand is suspected of enabling extensive internet fraud, human trafficking, forced labor and other crimes, and is being enriched by a business network that extends across Asia, a rights group said in a report.

The group Justice for Myanmar detailed a multitude of business links that the junta-allied Karen Border Guard Force, or BGF, has established in Thailand, Malaysia and beyond, and it called on governments to act to stop the illegal activity.

The militia was formed by fighters who broke away from the Karen National Union insurgent group in the 1990s and sided with the junta. It became one of several military-backed Border Guard Forces in 2009.

Control over border crossings gave the group access to lucrative revenue streams, while its self-ruled zones became a magnet for illegal casinos, online gambling and scam centers that have proliferated along Myanmar’s borders with both China and Thailand.

The operations, which gangs organize throughout the region, are often run on the labor of people tricked into thinking they’ve landed legitimate jobs but forced to adopt false identities online in what have become known as “pig-butchering” schemes, forming relationships with victims then tricking them into investing in fake schemes.

University of Texas researchers estimated in a March report that scammers had tricked investors out of more than US$75 billion since January 2020.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/myanmar-border-scam-06132024015620.html