Notorious Cyber Fraud Complex Linked with China-based Mafia Stormed

The Myanmar junta states it has taken control of one of the most notorious fraud facilities on the boundary with Thai territory, as it regains key area lost in the current domestic strife.

KK Park, located south of the border town of Myawaddy, has been linked with online fraud, money laundering and people smuggling for the past five years.

Numerous individuals were lured to the facility with promises of lucrative jobs, and then forced to operate complex frauds, taking substantial sums of dollars from targets across the world.

The junta, historically stained by its links to the deception industry, now says it has taken the facility as it increases control around Myawaddy, the main trade link to Thailand.

In the past few weeks, the junta has repelled insurgents in various areas of Myanmar, aiming to maximise the quantity of territories where it can hold a proposed election, starting in December.

It presently doesn't control large swathes of the country, which has been torn apart by hostilities since a armed takeover in February 2021.

The election has been disregarded as a sham by resistance groups who have sworn to obstruct it in areas they occupy.

KK Park started with a lease agreement in the beginning of 2020 to construct an commercial zone between the KNU (KNU), the ethnic insurgent group which governs much of this area, and a little-known Hong Kong listed firm, Huanya International.

Investigators suspect there are connections between Huanya and a influential Asian underworld individual Wan Kuok Koi, more commonly called Broken Tooth, who has later funded other fraud hubs on the boundary.

The compound expanded quickly, and is clearly noticeable from the Thai border of the boundary.

Those who were able to escape from it detail a brutal environment enforced on the countless people, numerous from continental African countries, who were detained there, made to work long hours, with abuse and assaults administered on those who did not manage to meet targets.

A announcement by the junta's information ministry said its forces had "cleared" KK Park, liberating more than 2,000 workers there and taking possession of 30 of Elon Musk's Starlink internet equipment – extensively utilized by fraud centers on the border boundary for online activities.

The declaration accused what it termed the "terrorist" Karen National Union and civilian militia units, which have been fighting the military since the coup, for illegally holding the territory.

The junta's declaration to have dismantled this notorious deception centre is very likely directed at its main backer, China.

Beijing has been pressuring the military and the Thailand government to take additional measures to stop the criminal businesses managed by China-based organizations on their common boundary.

In previous months numerous of China-based workers were extracted of fraud complexes and flown on chartered planes back to China, after Thai authorities cut supply to power and petroleum resources.

But KK Park is merely one of no fewer than 30 similar compounds positioned on the frontier.

A large portion of these are under the guardianship of local armed units allied to the junta, and many are currently functioning, with tens of thousands operating scams inside them.

In fact, the assistance of these armed units has been critical in assisting the junta repel the KNU and other resistance groups from land they captured over the recent two-year period.

The armed forces now governs almost all of the route joining Myawaddy to the other parts of Myanmar, a objective the regime determined before it organizes the first stage of the vote in December.

It has seized Lay Kay Kaw, a modern community founded for the KNU with Japanese funding in 2015, a period when there had been expectations for enduring peace in the Karen region following a nationwide peace agreement.

That constitutes a more substantial blow to the KNU than the takeover of KK Park, from which it received limited income, but where most of the financial benefits went to military-aligned militias.

A well-placed source has revealed that deception work is persisting in KK Park, and that it is possible the junta took control of only part of the sprawling complex.

The source also thinks Beijing is providing the Myanmar armed forces inventories of China-based persons it seeks extracted from the deception compounds, and sent back to be prosecuted in China, which may account for why KK Park was targeted.