Myanmar’s ruling military said on Sunday it has demolished more than 100 buildings in a sweeping crackdown on a notorious online scam compound near the Thai border — a rare publicized move amid growing pressure from China to rein in the country’s billion-dollar cybercrime industry.
According to the junta-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar, troops have torn down 101 of 148 structures inside the compound, which included dormitories, a gym, a spa, a four-storey hospital, and a two-storey karaoke complex. The remaining 47 buildings, the report said, are “in progress” to be demolished.
The compound, known as KK Park, is situated in the lawless border area of Myawaddy, opposite Thailand’s Tak province. The site has become infamous as one of Southeast Asia’s largest scam hubs — a sprawling enclave where cybercriminal networks run romance and investment fraud schemes that have swindled victims around the world out of tens of billions of dollars.
Since Myanmar’s 2021 coup, the country has fractured into a patchwork of militia-controlled zones, where criminal syndicates have flourished under minimal oversight. In these remote areas, “scam factories” — often operated by transnational crime rings with links to China, Cambodia, and Laos — have thrived, recruiting both trafficked victims and voluntary workers.
Some recruits are lured with false promises of high-paying jobs, only to be held captive and forced to run online scams. Others willingly join, drawn by luxury accommodations and relative stability in a country otherwise torn apart by civil war.
Reports from humanitarian organizations describe conditions inside these compounds as “digital slavery”: workers endure 18-hour shifts, beatings, and torture if they fail to meet daily scam quotas.
The junta’s latest announcement comes three weeks after it claimed to have discovered more than 2,000 scammers at KK Park during a military raid, which sent 1,500 suspects fleeing across the Moei River into Thailand.
While AFP and other news agencies could not independently verify the military’s demolition claims, local residents on both sides of the border reported hearing explosions and gunfire in recent days. Thai authorities in Mae Sot have tightened patrols and established temporary shelters for those fleeing the compound.
Analysts, however, caution that the junta’s operations may be more performative than punitive. “These are choreographed, limited raids designed to ease Chinese pressure while maintaining the flow of profits,” said a regional security analyst based in Bangkok. “Many scam compounds are run by militias allied with the military, and their revenues help fund the junta’s war effort.”
Beijing has grown increasingly frustrated with the persistence of cybercrime networks targeting Chinese citizens. Over the past two years, China has intensified pressure on Myanmar’s generals and regional warlords to crack down on scam rings.
In February, Chinese law enforcement coordinated a campaign that led to the repatriation of around 7,000 Chinese nationals from scam compounds in northern Myanmar. Beijing also urged neighboring countries to curb illegal telecommunications networks, calling the scams “a cancer on cross-border relations.”
“China’s message has been clear — it wants this criminal economy dismantled,” said Yun Sun, a China-Myanmar expert at the Stimson Center. “But Myanmar’s military is caught in a paradox: its survival depends on the very militias and businessmen who profit from these scams.”
The crackdown has also highlighted how scammers have adapted to evade enforcement. After Thailand imposed a cross-border internet blockade earlier this year, operators in KK Park and other compounds reportedly turned to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet terminals to maintain connectivity.
An AFP investigation published in October revealed that hundreds of Starlink receivers were being installed across scam zones in Myanmar. Following the report, SpaceX confirmed disabling over 2,500 terminals near suspected scam operations, saying the company “does not condone illegal use of its services.”
Myanmar’s military subsequently launched its first major raid on KK Park on October 19, days after the findings.
While Sunday’s demolition announcement marks one of the junta’s most visible crackdowns to date, observers remain skeptical that the campaign will significantly curb the country’s cybercrime epidemic.
“Every few months the junta showcases a big operation — arrests, demolitions, or deportations — but the deeper criminal ecosystem remains untouched,” said Jason Tower, Myanmar country director at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “As long as these networks are intertwined with militia funding and border trade, the problem will persist.”
Myanmar’s war-torn borderlands — from Shan State in the north to Karen State in the southeast — remain beyond effective government control. In these territories, militias aligned with or tolerated by the junta have transformed criminal enterprises into de facto state economies, generating revenue through extortion, drug trafficking, and online scams.
As the junta struggles to contain nationwide armed resistance, its latest demolition drive appears aimed as much at optics as enforcement — signaling to Beijing that it is acting against cybercriminals, while maintaining a fragile balance with the powerful militia bosses that keep it afloat.
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