Recently, the leader of the Border Guard Force (BGF), Suchit, handed over the third batch of 540 telecom fraud personnel to Thailand, who came from the famous Myawaddy telecom fraud park.
This is the third batch of fraud-related personnel released by Suchit, who were handed over to the Thai reception team via the second Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge and were sent directly to Mae Sot Airport in Thailand after screening.
Among these 540 people, the majority are male, with 529 males and 11 females, who landed at Nanjing Airport on the 14th.
Meanwhile, in Osmar City on the Thai-Cambodian border, a large number of mysterious new buildings suddenly appeared. After investigation by the Thai security departments, these construction projects turned out to be investments by multinational capitals, and the construction teams and workers mainly came from Thailand. As for what these projects are specifically, there is still no clear answer.
Osmar City is not a popular tourist destination, nor does it have large-scale industrial enterprises; it has always been an economically backward area. However, a large number of buildings have suddenly appeared recently, and many foreigners have also started to appear in this area, leading Thai security departments to suspect that this might be a precursor to a new telecom fraud park.
Suchit's "Handover Action": Self-rescue or cover-up?
Suchit's "handover action" initiated earlier this year can actually be seen as a crisis self-rescue plan he designed for himself.
Since the beginning of the year, nearly 3000 people have been handed over by the Thai-Myanmar side, but it is worrying that the core areas of telecom fraud have not been effectively struck.
Most of the people handed over are low-value "pigs," which are the grassroots personnel carrying out tasks. The core figures who control the financial and technical chains are still unscathed.
At the handover ceremony, Suchit specifically emphasized that the Myawaddy telecom fraud park is still operating normally, which released a message to the outside world—the park is still "safe" and has not been substantially affected by external strikes.
Osmar City: The new telecom fraud park may be here
According to the analysis of the Thai security departments, some telecom fraud groups are ready to open a new battlefield on the Thai-Cambodian border, and Osmar City seems to be their new target.
This area has several unique features:
Secluded location: Osmar is located in an economically backward area, not easily noticed by outsiders;
Professional construction: Multinational construction teams are involved, with modern building facilities, making it difficult to arouse suspicion from the outside world;
Compliant operations: Most projects are covered by legitimate businesses, which do not seem problematic to the outside world.
Unlike the violent detentions in early telecom fraud parks, the new parks are using the guise of legitimate businesses to establish a new "crime ecosystem," which includes not only casinos but also hotels, technology parks, and other industries. Thai security departments worry that these new parks are planning to commit new crimes by exploiting legal gaps between Thailand and Cambodia.
Current strike effects: Can the telecom fraud industry be eradicated?
Although the existing strike actions have achieved good results, the problem is that these actions seem to only be able to take down some "small fish," while the real big fish are still manipulating behind the scenes.
Moreover, although the strikes seem to be making progress, they may fall into a "the more you fight, the more they appear" cycle. Local armed forces like Suchit's view the telecom fraud industry as a financial lifeline, and the Myanmar military government does not have the ability to substantially affect these forces.
There are also many gaps in judicial cooperation among Southeast Asian countries, and criminal groups are becoming more rampant in cross-border crimes through loopholes in border management.
Solving the telecom fraud chaos: Regional cooperation is key
To eradicate the cancer of telecom fraud, it is essential to directly target the core of the "military-political-commercial" triangle chain.
The most urgent task is to establish a joint patrol mechanism along the China-Myanmar-Thailand border to cut off local armed protection of the telecom fraud parks.
At the same time, countries involved in fraud need to incorporate telecom fraud governance into the ASEAN regional security framework and implement cross-border sanctions against local governments that condone crime.
Poverty-stricken areas along the border should also promote the implementation of digital economy special zone plans, replacing the black economy with legitimate industries, thereby curbing the breeding of cross-border crimes.
Only by elevating anti-telecom fraud actions to the construction of a regional security community can we truly solve and curb the chaos of telecom fraud.
Currently, the telecom fraud industry is evolving from "warlord protection 1.0" to "transnational capital 2.0," with a more covert and complex modus operandi. Strike strategies should no longer stay at the end of cleaning up but should transform to governance at the source.
