Scammers using Starlink make hay in Myanmar

{ BILLION DOLLAR OPERATIONS

- Agence France-Presse

They said they had smashed them. But fraud factories in Myanmar blamed for scamming Chinese and American victims out of billions of dollars are still in business and bigger than ever, an investigation by news agency AFP found.

Satellite images and AFP drone footage show frenetic building work in the heavily guarded compounds around Myawaddy on the Thailand-Myanmar border, which appear to be using Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service on a huge scale.

Experts say most of the centres, notorious for their romance scams and “pig butchering” investment cons, are run by Chinese-led crime syndicates working with Myanmar militias in the lawless badlands of the Golden Triangle.

China, Thailand and Myanmar pressured the militias into vowing to “eradicate” the compounds in February, releasing around 7,000 people from a brutal call centre-like system.

Freed workers from Asia, Africa and elsewhere showed AFP journalists the scars and bruises of beatings they said were inflicted by their bosses.

They said they had been forced to work around the clock, trawling for victims for a plethora of phone and internet scams.

Sun, a Chinese national who was sold between several compounds, was able to give AFP a rare insider's account after being freed with Beijing's help.

But a senior Thai police official said after the crackdown began that up to 100,000 people may still toil in the compounds - often mini cities surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed guards -- that have sprung up on the border with Myanmar since the Covid pandemic. Satellite images show rapid construction work resuming at several compounds only weeks after the crackdown. Flocks of Starlink satellite dishes soon began to cover many scam centre roofs after Thailand cut their internet and power connections.