Myanmar Deports 55,000 Amid Rebound In Online Gambling Crime

January 24, 2025
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Myanmar’s government has admitted that online gambling and other cyber-crime is increasing in the Thai border region of Myawaddy, despite months of ethnic militia crackdowns and the deporting of more than 55,000 “illegal residents” since October.
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Myanmar’s government has admitted that online gambling and other cyber-crime is increasing in the Thai border region of Myawaddy, despite months of ethnic militia crackdowns and the deporting of more than 55,000 “illegal residents” since October.

The official Myanmar News Agency (MNA) reported on Tuesday (January 21) that “crimes, including unlawful online gambling, are on the rise currently in the [Myawaddy]-Shwe Kokko and KK Park areas” in Kayin State on the Thai border.

KK Park, a notorious cyber-crime precinct hugging the Moei River south of key border town Myawaddy, is one of several major criminal cyber-scamming compounds in the area that rotates between crackdowns and patronage by local militia tenuously allied with the central government.

The MNA report largely attributed cyber-scamming and online gambling criminal networks in Kayin State and Shan State to its north to the actions of “foreigners”, “foreign organisations” and “ethnic armed organisations” that control almost all of Myanmar’s border territories.

In any case, the government's admission points to the durability of illegal operations in the region, possibly boosted by ongoing crackdowns in Laos and Cambodia.

It added that 55,711 foreign nationals have been deported from Myanmar since October 5 last year.

Chinese nationals make up the overwhelming majority of deportees at 53,388, with only Vietnam (1,149 deportees), Thailand (648) and Malaysia (142) reaching triple figures out of 31 nations with impacted citizens.

Other deportees, consisting of voluntary or slave labour, include a handful of foreign nationals from as far afield as Poland, Spain, Russia, Uganda, Ghana, Morocco and Northern Ireland, the report said, without citing sources.

It added that the Myanmar government has in recent months received Asian, European and African government and Interpol requests to search for 4,176 people — the bulk of which were or are forced to work in the compounds — and that more than 2,800 of these are ongoing cases.

Despite Chinese nationals and expatriates being the drivers of Southeast Asia’s underground online gambling and cyber-scamming ecosystem, the Myanmar government’s close ties to Beijing have resulted in blame being squarely cast on an unnamed “group in exile” that exploits Myanmar’s civil war zones and its brittle nationwide ceasefire agreement.

“Chinese nationals do not deceive Myanmar nationals, and Myanmar nationals do not deceive Chinese,” the report quoted the State Administration Council, the formal name of Myanmar’s military junta, as saying.

“A group in exile who committed crimes deceived the two countries. Those who are guilty must be exposed and those who protect them must also be prosecuted.”

The report, which carries an unusual amount of detail and data given MNA’s reputation for censorship, also suggested other nations are, at best, not lifting their weight in combatting cyber-crime.

“To run online scams and online gambling, [criminals need] electricity, internet connection, arms and ammunition and buildings. Those who run these schemes might have access to these relying on other countries.

“They are not Myanmar nationals, but they are foreigners who illegally entered Myanmar via illegal routes from neighbouring countries. The neighbouring countries should participate in combating online scams and online gambling.”

MNA published the report a week after Myanmar and Thailand discussed regional cyber-scamming gangs during an ASEAN digital ministers summit in Bangkok.

The Bangkok Post reported on Saturday (January 18), however, that it was the Thai government that placed pressure on Myanmar Deputy Prime Minister Mya Tun Oo to act more aggressively, so much so that he “pledged to bring the issue to his government’s attention”.

The Thai government is preparing draft legislation to legalise online gambling, partly in response to its inability to enforce the law against prolific domestic consumption, and partly, sources say, to shield its integrated resort initiative from the political fallout of online gambling crime.

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