Exposing a Burma Scam Center Liberated from Burma Army Proxy Forces
- mattn109
- 1 hour ago
- 13 min read
The war that rages on in Burma today is fought on a multitude of fronts. In the mountainous regions of Burma, armed resistance groups are struggling to defend their communities against the bloody regime of the State Security and Peace Commission, SSPC (formerly called the State Administration Council), a military dictatorship with a track record of profiting from illicit activities. Within this convoluted conflict, a quickly expanding criminal empire has taken root. Cyber scam centers, run by established Chinese crime rings and manned by victims of human trafficking, are popping up all along the Burma-Thai border. According to a recent report by the U.S. State Department, American citizens lost $10 billion to these cyber scamming operations in 2024, a 66% increase from the year before. The capabilities of this established criminal enterprise are growing. These centers have an undeniable international impact, through the thousands of foreigners they traffic and the mass of funds they siphon from foreign countries.
Many of the people trafficked into the centers find themselves in a situation of modern-day slavery, subjected to torture and even killed by these well-embedded rings of highly effective criminals. The scam centers, protected by pro-SSPC border militias, play a role in the ongoing conflict throughout the region. By providing funds to the Burma Army proxy forces that offer them protection, these illegitimate companies indirectly bolster the Burma Army’s violent oppression of the minority groups throughout Burma. The ethnic resistance groups continue in their fight for freedom from the oppression of the SSPC, and it is in this chaotic environment of conflict that these scam centers are thriving, raking in immense wealth from online scam victims while sheltered in a part of the globe that war has made both difficult to reach and almost impossible to investigate. International scam labor victims from different countries are trafficked from the border areas of Cambodia and Vietnam, through Burma or Thailand, to the scam centers on the Thai-Burma border, where thousands of victims are put to work under the constant threat of violence.
On Nov. 21 in the small Karen village of Min Let Pan, south of Myawaddy, one of these scam hubs, named Shunda Park, was discovered by the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU). Over three thousand workers from 23 countries were found in Shunda Park, most of whom are victims of forced labor. This discovery was made after a clash between the defense force and the SSPC-aligned military group known as the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA). The week before the KNLA took Min Let Pan, the U.S. designated the DKBA as a co-conspirator in the scamming industry in Burma, with direct ties to Chinese crime bosses and strategic collusion with the Burma Army.
Shunda Park is the first scam center taken by the KNLA. This battle was a pivotal victory for the resistance group, though the gained ground came with a new set of challenges, namely caring for and defending the liberated victims of labor trafficking. The KNLA has taken on the management of these international victims while also attempting to accurately document and investigate the scam center, all while pushing back against the encroaching Burma Army.
One week after the KNLA took the village of Min Let Pan, an FBR team was invited by members of the local KNU leadership to come and help investigate and document Shunda Park and its operatives. The Burma Army offensive was roughly a kilometer north of the center, and the KNU was scrambling to handle both the pile of information and the mass of those trafficked, who are in desperate need of rescue. The following day, we were on our way to the recently recaptured territory.
There is ample evidence from American sanctions, UN reporting, and multiple investigations that armed groups operating under or alongside the Burma military are earning significant money from scam compounds along the border. These groups, including the DKBA and Border Guard Forces, have long been formally tied to the Burma military and are documented as providing land, security, and other services to scam operators while profiting significantly from the proceeds.
Shunda Park is small in comparison to other scam centers in the region, such as KK Park, a notorious compound nearly nine times the size of Shunda Park, and only 8 kilometers to the north. The Shunda Park scam center in Min Let Pan has been operating since July 2024 and has trafficked thousands of internationals. It is a scene of obvious corruption, with clear signs of systematic human rights violations and a mountain of accumulated materials used in the scamming of foreign citizens. The KNLA served as hosts, security, and tour guides during our time in Min Let Pan, and on the morning of Nov. 30, they took the FBR team to Shunda Park to document the situation faced by the KNU. The collection of large, warehouse-sized office buildings and dormitories, with bars on the windows and cages over the patios, is surrounded by a concrete wall that runs three kilometers along the perimeter of the complex, topped with triple rows of razor wire.
The scam itself, though carried out in different ways by thousands of scammers, frequently consisted of "pig butchering," which requires the scammer to build a long-term relationship with an online counterpart. Wigs, props, and call rooms fashioned to look like the affluent home of an investor were used by the scam center operatives to further sell their fraudulent identity. The scammer would then introduce economics into the conversation, and over time, lead their victim to invest in various cryptocurrencies, which were then redirected to one of the many companies that profited from the scam center. Thousands of computers and phones, used in the investment scams, were recovered by the KNU after they took Shunda Park.
To understand the recruitment and trafficking process, as well as the conditions of life in a Burma scam center, we interviewed several victims who were willing to share their stories.
Timothy, a 27-year-old man, was coerced into work at Shunda Park after fleeing his home country, Uganda, where he was actively persecuted and tortured by the military. He fled to Thailand in 2024, seeking an asylum visa, and was traveling in Laos when he met a Chinese man who called himself Da-long. Timothy and Da-long began traveling together, and when the man from China had earned Timothy’s trust, he began telling him about work opportunities in the East. Timothy needed work, and after several meetings with businessmen in Laos, Timothy was loaded into a car with several unnamed, armed men. “That was the last time I saw freedom,” he said. The traffickers took Timothy on a long journey over a jungle route, at times forcing him to walk for days, eventually smuggling him across the Thai-Burma border. The day after he arrived at the scam center in Min Let Pan, Timothy overslept and was punished for his thirty-minute delay with two weeks in a basement torture room, surviving on only one bottle of water each day. Timothy was subjected to daily beatings, and when he was finally released from the dark room, he was resigned to obeying the scam center bosses in order to survive another day. During his time, he saw other workers taken to the torture room, some returning to work again in horrific conditions, while others were never seen again. The man spoke with conviction, and his plea for help was earnest and intense. Timothy was held at the Shunda Park for one year, and he now waits for an opportunity to escape Burma.
A man from China, who prefers to go unnamed, was kidnapped near the Bavet area of Cambodia and was forcibly taken by armed men to the scam center in Karen State. He was forced to work in Burma for six months and testified to the consistently violent nature of those who ran Shunda Park.
Ho Yong Zhan, a 25-year-old Malaysian man, attested to the atrocious conditions for workers at Shunda Park during his two and a half months there. He was initially kidnapped as a tourist in Chiang Mai, Thailand, by a Chinese man in a car posing as a Grab driver. He was handcuffed and driven to the river, where they brought him across to the scam center. Ho Yong Zhan spoke of the grueling work conditions, working 12-hour days under the constant threat of beatings and electrocutions if they did not perform adequately. He said the Chinese company foremen would sometimes kill scam laborers in front of them, to make an example, and that someone was killed by the Chinese bosses in the compound nearly "every day or every other day."
The testimonies of torture were consistently detailed and disturbing. Another Malaysian man named Ivan, with tears in his eyes, described how the compound security bound him in chains to the wall of a basement room, "Jesus style," and repeatedly struck his body with staffs and tasers. He and many others endured sessions in solitary confinement, sometimes going days without food. According to interviews with multiple victims, this inhumane treatment was common practice for those running the operation, and was the expected result for the workers who disobeyed or didn't perform.
Many victims have been lured to these scamming hubs through advertisements on social media platforms. Kirubel, from Ethiopia, responded to an ad for a marketing job he had seen while scrolling on Instagram. He thought he was pursuing good work that could help provide support for his family. Months later, he was being shuffled between traffickers inside Burma, sold between multiple scam centers. Kirubel had been at Shunda Park for only a few days when the KNLA took control of the area, freeing this young man from forced labor.
Those we interviewed from the pool of liberated workers living outside the compound gave us personal accounts of kidnapping, coercion, and brutal beatings that were consistent throughout our conversations with the foreigners. Timothy was adamant about the role he played in the operation. “Not all of the world will see clearly. Some of them will criticize, and they will torment us for this work. Why would you first even allow it to happen? But we are sorry. We never came into this knowingly.” And many others were also tricked into an environment that they would never have chosen of their own accord.
When the KNLA began to document those living in the scam compound, they faced the unfortunate reality that not all of those who were in the camp were forced. Some workers exploited the system and profited from the forced laborers who were kept downstairs. These scammers were intertwined with the population of authentic victims. In the KNU's Procedure for Assisting Victims of Human Trafficking, it is stipulated that "No victims are to be treated as criminals for offenses committed under coercion." Applying this to the right workers and discerning the abusers from the victims became a crucial task for the soldiers, who were responsible for defending the scam center from the Burma Army's consistent bombardment. The KNLA has attempted to keep the willing workers separated from the international victims of trafficking, but the large group that emerged from the scam compound has been difficult to differentiate and process. According to the KNLA and interviews with victims, the voluntary workers were given a higher percentage of income, quality living quarters, and were generally exempt from the torture described by so many of the other workers.
The crime bosses' methodology of incentivizing scam center workers took multiple forms, and cheap systems of reward were weaponized alongside the brutal physical and psychological beatdowns. Plastic trophies were found on the cluttered desks of laborers, and these signs of criminal accomplishment, along with prizes like water guns and mouse pads, were a strange sight amidst the scenes of abandoned software and incriminating evidence. In every room where scammers worked, a statue of the Chinese god of wealth, Guan Yu, was positioned for daily offerings and prayer. A large drum was also placed in every workroom, and the workers were instructed to strike these drums when they hit certain financial benchmarks, while reciting a mantra about the importance of acquiring money. Propaganda posters and murals, linking hard work to personal value, were plastered to many of the workroom walls.
Snacks and cigarettes, as well as the occasional and highly-valued karaoke party, were gifted to the workers when they lived up to the high expectations of their bosses. Stashes of comforting supplements like Chinese herbal medicines and tea could be found in almost every office, though access to crucial healthcare was limited, keeping the victims just healthy enough to work another dozen hours. For many, this reward system, combined with the imminent threat of physical punishment, was enough to push them to submission.
After several hours in the office buildings, we were then taken to the homes of the compound managers. The three-story mansions, filled with cheap artwork and chandeliers, were forsaken overnight by the crime bosses. We found empty safes, upturned mattresses, closets left full of clothes, and dining tables still crowded with rotting meals.
The homes of those who oversaw the forced labor and torture of the scam center workers starkly demonstrated the extreme division of wealth and the priority put on comfort and leisure by those who have made a career out of oppressing others. Inside these homes, we could hear mortar strikes to the north, and the wire atop the formidable concrete wall, only meters from the line of mansions, rattled each time artillery struck.
Further insight into the day-to-day horrors faced by the trafficked laborers came from the documents found in the compound, recovered by the KNU and reviewed by FBR.
When victims arrived at Shunda Park, after being stripped of their visa and passport, they were given two resources: A code of conduct packet and an official-looking contract, both of which attest to the manipulation of the traffickers. Listed in the employee contract, one criterion for “job termination” was in the event that a worker was no longer suitable for the conditions of the work environment in the camp. If a forced laborer was found to be spreading negative messages about the company, that worker would be "fired." Policies discouraging camaraderie and potential conspiracy were implemented to further regulate the individual autonomy of the victims. Foreigners trafficked for forced labor, according to multiple victims, were not fired. They were never given the opportunity to go home. They were either forced into submission, sold to another scam center, or killed.
Each day, if workers were late for their shift, punishment was swift and ferocious. Throughout the day, if workers slouched or were perceived to be falling behind in their work, the compound bosses were ready with long staffs made of bamboo and rubber to beat them into compliance. According to the stipulations in the code of conduct, employees were supposed to receive a dock in their pay for idle hands. Instead, the punishments perpetrated against the workers were far more grim. Lengths of cord and ice-cold water, poured on the heads of the workers, were regularly weaponized by scam center bosses as reprisal against victims who did not meet their quota. The scam center laborers were required to work 12-hour days, with only a half-day of rest per week.
When the DKBA surrendered to the KNLA, the victims of trafficking were given the chance to set up a new and temporary camp nearby the scam center while waiting for Thai officials to grant them access into Thailand. The KNU immediately began organizing humanitarian relief for these people. Food, medical attention, and advocacy began the day the victims were set loose from Shunda Park. While many foreigners attempted to swim across the river, some successfully, the majority of the international victims settled down to wait on the Burma side, their future unknown, their petition for repatriation seemingly at a standstill. When asking if anyone would be willing to conduct interviews inside the compound, we were met with an emphatic response. Nobody wanted to go back there. Victor, a man from India, who had been held captive at Shunda Park for nearly six months, said, “That place is hell to me. I would not go back in, even if someone forced me to go.”
On the evening of Nov. 30th, the KNU and the victims of labor trafficking saw some movement with their case. Thai officials began organizing people into lines on a first-come, first-serve basis to float them across the Moei River into Thailand, bringing them one step closer to their repatriation process. Thai officials accepted 372 workers that night, giving those trafficked much-needed attention and somewhat alleviating the KNLA of their burden. Many other victims were left in Burma, waiting for outside entities to act. “We want to go legally, I want to go soon,” Timothy said about his desire for repatriation. He is a father of one and expressed longing for his family, whom he hadn't seen in over a year. Kirubel, who had been separated from his family for two months, offered a simple response when asked about hopes for the future. “We want to go home, that is all we want.”
The security situation in Shunda Park is still tense. The Burma Army is holding its position to the north and has been consistently attempting to retake Min Let Pan and the Shunda Park center from the KNLA, who have suffered casualties as a result of Burma Army artillery. There are over 1,000 workers still trying to leave Shunda Park, and if the scam center falls back into the hands of the Burma Army, so will the remaining victims of trafficking. Within an hour of FBR's departure from Shunda Park, mortars landed in and around the compound, near the tents of the victims. A member of the FBR team was able to administer medical aid to a villager who had been shot in the leg while fleeing from the Burma Army. To make a complex scenario worse, many of the scam workers who voluntarily came to the camp have expressed a desire to remain in Burma, and some of them have caused trouble for the KNLA, starting fires, riots, and attempting to flee into the jungle. The Karen defenses are stretched thin, and for the resistance to overcome the bloodshed perpetrated against them by the junta, as well as the disastrous impact of the scam centers on their community, the KNU and those fighting to free the oppressed need international humanitarian, diplomatic, and legal support.
The international community needs to hold the leaders of these organized crime rings and the protecting security forces accountable in order to ensure these scam centers stop their cycles of robbery and violence. Despite crackdowns on multiple scam sites, the well-funded criminal industry continues to thrive. Today, there are over 40 scam centers operating on the Thai-Burma border, and the number has doubled since the 2021 coup. The reach and capabilities of these criminal hubs are growing exponentially. Teams to document human rights abuses and accumulate evidence to charge the criminals responsible are greatly needed by the Karen people. Attention from international publications and organizations, in any capacity, could go a long way in providing improved support in disbanding these scam centers. Please pray for an end to this oppressive industry, that there would be healing for the lives who have been trafficked internationally, and for the resistance groups who fight for freedom with very few allies.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19
Thanks and God bless,
The Free Burma Rangers.
