Myanmar’s military said Sunday (November 23, 2025) it arrested nearly 1,600 foreign nationals in five days in a highly publicised crackdown on a notorious internet scam hub on the Thai border.

Sprawling fraud factories have mushroomed in war-torn Myanmar’s border regions, housing scammers who target internet users with romance and business cons worth tens of billions of dollars annually.

Myanmar’s junta has long been accused of looking the other way as the illicit industry grows, but has trumpeted a crackdown since February after being lobbied by key military backer China, experts say.

Additional raids beginning last month were part of a smokescreen, according to some monitors, choreographed to vent pressure from Beijing without too badly denting profits that enrich the junta’s militia allies.

In its latest publicised tally, the junta said “1,590 foreign nationals who entered Myanmar illegally were arrested” from November 18 to 22 in raids on gambling and fraud hub Shwe Kokko, according to state media The Global New Light of Myanmar.

“Moreover, authorities seized 2,893 computers, 21,750 mobile phones, 101 Starlink satellite receivers, 21 Routers and a large number of industrial materials used in the online fraud and gambling activities,” the newspaper said.

After an AFP investigation last month revealed receivers from the Starlink satellite internet service had been installed en masse at scam compounds, the Elon Musk-owned company said it had disabled more than 2,500 Starlink devices in the vicinity of suspected Myanmar scam centres.

The Global New Light of Myanmar said 223 people accused of perpetrating online fraud and gambling at Shwe Kokko were detained on Saturday alone, including 100 Chinese nationals.

Video published by local media showed a steamroller crushing hundreds of computer monitors lined up in rows next to piles of already smashed mobile phones at the Shwe Kokko compound on Saturday.

Scam hubs, staffed by thousands of willing workers as well as people trafficked from abroad, have proliferated in Myanmar’s loosely governed borderlands since a 2021 coup sparked a civil war in the country.

While China is a key military backer of the junta, analysts say Beijing is increasingly irate at the rampant scams targeting and enlisting its citizens.

Scam victims in Southeast and East Asia alone were conned out of up to $37 billion in 2023, according to a UN report, which said global losses were likely “much larger”.

India was to repatriate 500 of its citizens from Thailand after a crackdown on a Myanmar scam hub led to workers fleeing over the border, the Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on Wednesday (October 29, 2025).

Sprawling compounds where internet tricksters target people with romance and business cons have thrived along Myanmar’s loosely governed border during its civil war, sparked by a 2021 coup.

Since last week one of the most notorious hubs — KK Park — has been roiled by apparent raids, with hundreds fleeing over the frontier river to the Thai town of Mae Sot.

The upheaval followed an AFP investigation which this month revealed rapid construction at border scam centres, despite a much-publicised crackdown in February.

More than 1,500 people from 28 countries had crossed into Thailand between the start of the crackdown on KK Park and Tuesday evening, according to the administration of the border province of Tak.

“Nearly 500 Indians are at Mae Sot,” Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters. “The Indian government will send a plane to take them back directly.”

Many people staffing the fraud factories say they were trafficked into the hubs, although analysts say workers also go willingly to secure attractive salary offers.

Mr. Anutin did not say whether the Indian nationals were being treated as criminals or victims, and the Indian embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Experts say Myanmar’s military has long turned a blind eye to scam centres which profit its militia allies who are crucial collaborators in their fight against rebels.

But the junta has also faced pressure to shut down scam operations from its military backer China, irked at its citizens both participating in and being targeted by the scams.

The February crackdown saw around 7,000 workers repatriated and Thailand enforce a cross-border internet blockade in a bid to throttle off the fraud factories.