Myanmar hands over 250 people rescued from cyber fraud center to Thailand

A senior Thai military official said that after a series of crackdowns on transnational telecom fraud activities, Myanmar authorities handed over more than 250 people rescued from telecom fraud centers to Thailand.

At about 4:30 pm yesterday, Thai authorities received 261 people believed to be victims of transnational telecom fraud centers at the Thai-Myanmar border in Mae Sot District, Tak Province. These people came from different countries, including Ethiopia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Kenya.

Thai Deputy Prime Minister Putan said that he had received a notice from the Myanmar government that these people had worked in a telecommunications fraud center in a border town in Myanmar, but because Myanmar could no longer keep an eye on them, it decided to hand them over to Thailand.

Thai authorities will next interrogate these people to confirm whether they are part of human trafficking or victims.

According to sources, there are still more than 17,000 victims of telecommunications fraud stranded in Myanmar. Among them, about 10,000 are Chinese.

In order to strengthen the containment of human trafficking, the Thai police set up more than 5,000 checkpoints across the country and arrested 524 foreign citizens involved in illegal activities between the 20th of last month and the 10th of this month.