The Myanmar KK compound, a base for telecom scam organizations, was recently heavily bombed and raided by the Myanmar military. According to sources in the Thai military, over 1,500 people escaped from the compound into Thailand, with the largest number being Indian nationals and 185 Chinese among them.
AFP cited experts and insiders who said the raid triggered an unprecedented “talent war,” as fleeing scammers flocked to neighboring scam factories seeking “re-employment.”
In recent years, online scam zones have sprung up across Southeast Asia like mushrooms after rain, using meticulously crafted romance scams and cryptocurrency fraud to drain the life savings of unsuspecting victims, causing annual losses worth billions of U.S. dollars. Many employees in these scam compounds are trafficked in, but there are also some who join voluntarily for high salaries.
In late October, the Myanmar scam factory “KK compound” was raided, causing over 1,500 people to escape into Thailand, but many chose to stay behind, continuing to search for new opportunities on the black market.
A Chinese national who volunteered at a scam factory told AFP that on October 23rd, hundreds of people who escaped from the KK compound arrived at his scam zone, attracted by monthly salaries as high as $1,400 (5,882 ringgit).
● Armed Groups “Resell” Laid-off Scammers
He said that after the mass escape from the KK compound, local armed groups immediately seized the opportunity to make money by “reselling” the jobless scammers to other compounds, fetching up to $70,000 (294,100 ringgit) per person.
According to estimates by an expert, the KK compound previously had about 20,000 workers, the vast majority of whom were Chinese nationals. The number who fled to Thailand may be less than 10% of the total.