Thailand’s army reports that 260 people were trafficked from Myanmar to Thailand

Thailand’s army announced Thursday that it had repatriated 260 victims of human trafficking from Myanmar, with over half of them being Ethiopians. This comes as the country cracks down on scam centers that operate along a weak border.

In Southeast Asia, particularly along the Thai-Myanmar border, criminal gangs have trafficked hundreds of thousands of people and forced them to labor in illicit web businesses that generate billions of dollars every year, according to the United Nations.

According to a statement from the Thai army, “After screening the group and verifying their nationalities, it was found that there were 20 nationalities,” of which 138 were Ethiopians.

Even though these illicit activities have been going on for years, Thai officials stepped up their efforts last month after Chinese actor Wang Xing was kidnapped in Thailand and lured in with the promise of a role.
Thai authorities later discovered him in Myanmar and released him.

A sizable contingent of trafficking victims who had been returned from Myanmar’s Myawaddy region were spotted on Wednesday crossing the Moei River into Thailand, where they were placed into Thai military vehicles while troops watched.

Based along the Thai border, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army is a rebel group from Myanmar that claimed to have located some 260 individuals from unnamed “businesses” while its members searched for forced labor in regions they controlled.

“We don’t know how they got here,” Major Saw San Aung, the chief of staff for the group, told Reuters. “We are continuing the search of forced labor, and we will send them back.”

As Bangkok’s concerns about scam centers’ effects on the crucial tourism industry grew, Thailand earlier this month cut off internet, fuel, and electricity to areas of Myanmar where the illegal compounds are active.