Notorious Online Fraud Hub Connected with Asian Criminal Syndicate Raided

The Myanmar armed forces claims it has seized one of the most infamous scam complexes on the frontier with Thailand, as it regains crucial territory lost in the continuing civil war.

KK Park, south of the border town of Myawaddy, has been synonymous with internet scams, cash cleaning and human trafficking for the past five years.

Countless people were attracted to the compound with guarantees of lucrative positions, and then compelled to run sophisticated frauds, stealing countless millions of dollars from targets all over the globe.

The armed forces, long tainted by its links to the scam business, now claims it has occupied the compound as it extends authority around Myawaddy, the primary commercial link to Thailand.

In recent weeks, the armed forces has driven back rebels in multiple regions of Myanmar, seeking to increase the number of locations where it can hold a scheduled poll, starting in December.

It currently lacks authority over significant territories of the country, which has been divided by conflict since a military coup in February 2021.

The poll has been dismissed as a fraud by anti-junta elements who have vowed to block it in regions they control.

KK Park began with a rental contract in early 2020 to build an commercial zone between the Karen National Union (KNU), the armed ethnic group which governs much of this region, and a unfamiliar Hong Kong stock market firm, Huanya International.

Researchers suspect there are relationships between Huanya and a prominent Chinese criminal individual Wan Kuok Koi, better known as Broken Tooth, who has later invested in further fraud facilities on the frontier.

The complex grew swiftly, and is clearly observable from the Thai border of the frontier.

Those who succeeded to escape from it describe a harsh system enforced on the countless people, many from continental African nations, who were confined there, compelled to operate long hours, with mistreatment and beatings applied on those who failed to meet quotas.

A declaration by the junta's official media stated its forces had "liberated" KK Park, releasing in excess of 2,000 workers there and taking possession of 30 of Elon Musk's Starlink communication devices – extensively used by deception centers on the border frontier for online operations.

The statement accused what it described as the "terrorist" ethnic organization and volunteer resistance groups, which have been opposing the junta since the overthrow, for wrongfully holding the region.

The regime's claim to have shut down this infamous deception facility is almost certainly aimed at its primary patron, China.

Beijing has been pressuring the regime and the Thai government to take additional measures to stop the unlawful businesses operated by China-based organizations on their common boundary.

Earlier this year numerous of Chinese workers were extracted of fraud complexes and sent on special flights back to China, after Thailand eliminated availability to electricity and energy provisions.

But KK Park is only one of at least 30 comparable facilities situated on the frontier.

The majority of these are under the control of Karen militia groups aligned to the junta, and most are presently functioning, with numerous individuals managing scams inside them.

In reality, the support of these armed units has been essential in helping the military drive back the KNU and other resistance factions from territory they seized over the past two years.

The junta now controls nearly all of the road joining Myawaddy to the other parts of Myanmar, a goal the junta determined before it holds the opening round of the vote in December.

It has taken Lay Kay Kaw, a new town created for the KNU with Asian investment in 2015, a era when there had been hopes for lasting tranquility in Karen State following a national peace agreement.

That forms a more substantial blow to the KNU than the takeover of KK Park, from which it obtained limited revenue, but where the bulk of the monetary advantages went to military-aligned militias.

A well-placed contact has indicated that fraud activities is ongoing in KK Park, and that it is possible the junta occupied only part of the sprawling complex.

The insider also believes Beijing is supplying the Burmese armed forces lists of Asian individuals it desires taken from the fraud compounds, and transported back to face trial in China, which may explain why KK Park was attacked.