Notorious Digital Deception Center Associated with Asian Mafia Targeted

The Burmese junta claims it has seized a key the most well-known scam complexes on the border with Thailand, as it retakes key area lost in the continuing civil war.

KK Park, positioned south of the border town of Myawaddy, has been synonymous with internet scams, money laundering and human trafficking for the previous five-year period.

Countless people were attracted to the compound with assurances of well-paid positions, and then coerced to run complex scams, extracting countless millions of currency from affected individuals across the world.

The armed forces, long tainted by its links to the fraud operations, now says it has seized the compound as it increases dominance around Myawaddy, the main trade route to Thailand.

In the previous month, the armed forces has repelled opposition fighters in several parts of Myanmar, aiming to maximise the amount of locations where it can hold a scheduled vote, beginning in December.

It still lacks authority over significant territories of the state, which has been divided by hostilities since a military coup in February 2021.

The election has been dismissed as a fraud by resistance groups who have pledged to prevent it in regions they occupy.

KK Park commenced with a rental contract in early 2020 to establish an industrial park between the Karen National Union (KNU), the armed ethnic organization which controls much of this region, and a little-known Hong Kong listed corporation, Huanya International.

Researchers believe there are connections between Huanya and a influential Chinese mafia figure Wan Kuok Koi, better known as Broken Tooth, who has since funded additional scam facilities on the frontier.

The complex developed rapidly, and is easily noticeable from the Thai territory of the frontier.

Those who succeeded to escape from it describe a harsh environment enforced on the countless people, several from continental African nations, who were held there, forced to operate extended shifts, with torture and physical violence applied on those who failed to reach targets.

A announcement by the regime's information ministry said its personnel had "secured" KK Park, liberating more than 2,000 employees there and taking possession of 30 of Elon Musk's Starlink internet equipment – extensively employed by fraud centers on the Myanmar-Thai boundary for online activities.

The announcement accused what it called the "extremist" Karen National Union and civilian people's defence forces, which have been opposing the junta since the overthrow, for wrongfully holding the region.

The junta's declaration to have shut down this notorious fraud hub is very likely directed at its primary backer, China.

Beijing has been pressuring the regime and the Thai government to increase efforts to end the illegal operations run by China-based organizations on their shared frontier.

In previous months thousands of Asian workers were taken out of deception complexes and flown on chartered planes back to China, after Thai authorities cut access to electricity and energy resources.

But KK Park is merely one of at least 30 comparable facilities positioned on the boundary.

Most of these are under the protection of local paramilitary forces associated to the military, and the majority are presently operating, with numerous individuals managing scams inside them.

In fact, the assistance of these armed units has been essential in helping the junta repel the KNU and other rebel factions from land they took control of over the past two years.

The military now governs the vast majority of the road joining Myawaddy to the other parts of Myanmar, a objective the military set itself before it organizes the opening round of the election in December.

It has taken Lay Kay Kaw, a recent settlement established for the KNU with Asian financial support in 2015, a period when there had been aspirations for enduring tranquility in the Karen region following a countrywide peace agreement.

That forms a more substantial setback to the KNU than the takeover of KK Park, from which it obtained some funds, but where the bulk of the monetary gains ended up with military-aligned paramilitary forces.

A informed source has indicated that deception operations is persisting in KK Park, and that it is probable the armed forces took control of just a portion of the extensive facility.

The source also suspects Beijing is supplying the Myanmar military lists of Chinese individuals it desires removed from the scam compounds, and transported back to be prosecuted in China, which may explain why KK Park was attacked.