Notorious Cyber Deception Complex Linked with Chinese Underworld Raided

The Myanmar junta states it has seized among the most notorious scam facilities on the frontier with Thai territory, as it reclaims key area previously lost in the current civil war.

KK Park, south of the boundary community of Myawaddy, has been linked with internet scams, money laundering and human trafficking for the recent half-decade.

Countless people were attracted to the facility with guarantees of high-income employment, and then coerced to run complex schemes, extracting billions of dollars from targets across the world.

The junta, long compromised by its connections to the fraud business, now claims it has occupied the compound as it extends control around Myawaddy, the main commercial route to Thailand.

In the previous month, the junta has repelled rebels in several areas of Myanmar, attempting to expand the number of locations where it can organize a planned poll, beginning in December.

It currently lacks authority over significant territories of the state, which has been divided by hostilities since a military coup in February 2021.

The election has been dismissed as a fake by opposition forces who have sworn to block it in territories they occupy.

KK Park started with a rental contract in the beginning of 2020 to establish an industrial park between the ethnic organization (KNU), the armed ethnic faction which dominates much of this territory, and a unfamiliar HK stock market company, Huanya International.

Researchers suspect there are links between Huanya and a prominent China-based criminal personality Wan Kuok Koi, better known as Broken Tooth, who has subsequently funded other scam hubs on the boundary.

The complex expanded quickly, and is clearly visible from the Thai territory of the border.

Those who were able to flee from it recount a violent regime established on the numerous individuals, many from African nations, who were detained there, made to work extended shifts, with torture and beatings applied on those who did not manage to achieve targets.

A declaration by the regime's communications department said its troops had "secured" KK Park, freeing over 2,000 employees there and confiscating 30 of Elon Musk's Starlink communication devices – extensively used by scam centers on the Thai-Myanmar border for digital activities.

The statement accused what it called the "militant" ethnic organization and local militia units, which have been combating the regime since the coup, for unlawfully controlling the territory.

The regime's declaration to have closed this notorious deception hub is very likely directed at its main supporter, China.

Beijing has been pressing the military and the Thailand administration to do more to terminate the illegal operations run by Chinese networks on their common boundary.

Previously in the year many of Asian employees were taken out of deception compounds and transported on chartered planes back to China, after Thailand restricted access to electricity and fuel supplies.

But KK Park is merely one of at least 30 analogous facilities positioned on the boundary.

Most of these are under the guardianship of local armed units associated to the military, and the majority are currently active, with countless people operating scams inside them.

In reality, the assistance of these armed units has been critical in helping the junta repel the KNU and additional opposition groups from territory they seized over the previous 24 months.

The military now controls almost all of the route joining Myawaddy to the rest of Myanmar, a target the regime established before it organizes the opening round of the election in December.

It has seized Lay Kay Kaw, a modern community established for the KNU with Japanese funding in 2015, a time when there had been expectations for lasting stability in the Karen region following a national truce.

That represents a more significant defeat to the KNU than the capture of KK Park, from which it received limited revenue, but where the majority of the economic benefits were directed to regime-supporting armed groups.

A knowledgeable insider has indicated that fraud work is persisting in KK Park, and that it is likely the military took control of merely a section of the extensive facility.

The insider also suspects Beijing is giving the Burmese junta rosters of Chinese people it desires extracted from the deception compounds, and sent back to be prosecuted in China, which may explain why KK Park was targeted.