Copyright scmp
A crackdown on a notorious Myanmar scam base is cosmetic and timed to appease world leaders meeting in Kuala Lumpur this weekend, a senior security source has told This Week in Asia, as links between politicians and fraud empires threaten to embarrass Asean with US President Donald Trump flying in for its summit. Scam factories from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have raked in tens of billions of dollars since the pandemic, run mainly by Chinese syndicates defrauding victims around the world through bogus investment schemes, fake romantic relations and outright extortion. They operate with near impunity in areas where the deluge of money buys protection from corrupt officials. The US State Department has said US$10 billion was defrauded from its citizens last year by scammers based in Southeast Asia. It is an issue that could become awkward for leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as the bloc holds its biggest event of the year in Malaysia in the presence of world leaders, including Trump, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The illicit gains have spread across the world – moved through cryptocurrency exchanges, hidden in shell companies and then pumped into prime real estate from London and New York to Singapore and Dubai. On October 18, Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi was charged by US authorities with running a scam empire from Cambodia. Over US$15 billion in bitcoin and tens of millions of dollars of prime London real estate were frozen in a joint US-UK crackdown. Chen is also believed to have set up a family office in Singapore. Ahead of Trump’s arrival on Sunday in Kuala Lumpur, Myanmar’s junta appeared to have closed down parts of KK Park, among the most infamous scam centres operating for years in Myawaddy, on the banks of the river Moei opposite Thailand. Smoke was seen rising from some buildings overnight, according to Thai television images, as Myanmar forces reportedly shelled parts of the zone, while over 1,000 people – most Chinese men, according to Thai immigration officials – fled across the Moei River into Thailand. Some floated luggage on foam through the waters, while others attempted to dry large amounts of currency notes on the Thai bank, according to television images, as Thai authorities tried to round them up for screening. Yet the latest crackdown appeared to be largely cosmetic, like similar operations in the past, timed to coincide with the Asean summit and appease both Beijing and Washington. “The crackdown is not serious,” said a regional security official who has rescued scores of people from scam centres. “This one is because of the coming Asean [summit], the same also happened last year. Laos and Myanmar are again pretending to crack down on scam hubs in the Golden Triangle.” He said around 500 people of multiple nationalities had been moved while the crackdown was going on, but they were told they would have to restart work “in KK Park” soon after it was sold to a new scam company. Asean leaders will discuss scams at their summit on Sunday and are under pressure to take a hard-line stance against the worsening problem. Meanwhile, more politicians and prominent businessmen across Southeast Asia have been placed on sanctions lists or named in investigations into money laundering or alleged profiteering from multi-billion-dollar scams. On Friday, Thailand stripped tycoon Phat Suphapa of his Thai citizenship, a well-connected businessman of Cambodian nationality who has been sanctioned by the US due to his scam links. The move by the Thai government of Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul was a public show to highlight that he is taking a zero-tolerance approach against scams, just as money trails begin to link other members of his government to crime groups, according to media reports. His officials have denied any role in helping scam centres in the Mekong region operate or move their illicit billions. Social media firms are also in the firing line for hosting scams on their platforms. Meta said in the first half of this year it used artificial intelligence to scour its platforms and identified 12 million scam accounts linked to Cambodia and Myanmar, and to a lesser extent, the Philippines, Laos and the United Arab Emirates. “These are extremely sophisticated, highly adversarial, very well-financed criminals that are engaging in these activities,” Rafael Frankel, Meta’s director of public policy, told This Week in Asia, saying the firm had shared its work with police from Singapore, Thailand and the US in recent days. “We put measures into place, eventually they figure out what we’ve done and they adapt their tactics. Then we have to adapt again,” he said. “That’s just the nature of battling criminals who are really good at what they do, unfortunately.”
