Notorious Online Fraud Complex Connected with Chinese Mafia Raided

The Burmese military announces it has seized one of the most infamous deception compounds on the boundary with Thailand, as it regains important territory previously lost in the current civil war.

KK Park, south of the boundary community of Myawaddy, has been linked with digital deception, financial crime and forced labor for the past five years.

Countless people were enticed to the compound with assurances of well-paid employment, and then coerced to run sophisticated schemes, extracting countless millions of dollars from victims all over the world.

The military, previously stained by its connections to the deception industry, now claims it has taken the compound as it increases dominance around Myawaddy, the primary economic link to Thailand.

In the past few weeks, the junta has driven back rebels in several parts of Myanmar, aiming to increase the amount of places where it can organize a proposed poll, beginning in December.

It currently lacks authority over large swathes of the country, which has been fragmented by conflict since a government overthrow in February 2021.

The vote has been rejected as a fake by anti-junta elements who have pledged to block it in regions they hold.

KK Park started with a rental contract in early 2020 to build an business complex between the KNU (KNU), the armed ethnic faction which dominates much of this area, and a unfamiliar HK publicly traded corporation, Huanya International.

Investigators think there are connections between Huanya and a influential Asian criminal personality Wan Kuok Koi, better known as Broken Tooth, who has later invested in other deception centers on the boundary.

The complex developed swiftly, and is easily noticeable from the Thailand territory of the boundary.

Those who managed to escape from it describe a violent environment enforced on the numerous individuals, several from Africa-based countries, who were held there, made to operate long hours, with mistreatment and beatings administered on those who did not manage to meet quotas.

A statement by the regime's communications department stated its personnel had "cleared" KK Park, freeing over 2,000 employees there and seizing 30 of Elon Musk's Starlink internet equipment – widely used by deception centers on the Myanmar-Thai frontier for online functions.

The statement blamed what it called the "militant" ethnic organization and volunteer people's defence forces, which have been opposing the junta since the overthrow, for illegally occupying the region.

The regime's declaration to have dismantled this notorious deception facility is almost certainly aimed at its main patron, China.

Beijing has been pressing the military and the Thailand authorities to do more to stop the criminal operations managed by China-based organizations on their shared frontier.

Previously in the year many of Chinese workers were removed of scam facilities and sent on chartered planes back to China, after Thai authorities cut access to electricity and energy resources.

But KK Park is only one of at least 30 similar compounds situated on the border.

Most of these are under the control of ethnic Karen paramilitary forces associated to the regime, and the majority are currently operating, with tens of thousands managing frauds inside them.

In fact, the backing of these armed units has been essential in helping the military push back the KNU and further resistance groups from land they seized over the past two years.

The armed forces now controls nearly all of the route joining Myawaddy to the rest of Myanmar, a objective the junta set itself before it organizes the initial phase of the poll in December.

It has captured Lay Kay Kaw, a modern community founded for the KNU with Japan-based financial support in 2015, a time when there had been aspirations for lasting stability in Karen State following a national truce.

That constitutes a more substantial setback to the KNU than the capture of KK Park, from which it obtained a certain amount of income, but where the majority of the economic advantages ended up with regime-supporting paramilitary forces.

A well-placed insider has revealed that deception activities is persisting in KK Park, and that it is possible the armed forces seized merely a section of the sprawling compound.

The source also thinks Beijing is giving the Myanmar military lists of Asian individuals it seeks taken from the fraud compounds, and sent back to be prosecuted in China, which may clarify why KK Park was targeted.