Renowned Cyber Deception Hub Connected with Asian Underworld Raided

The Burmese military claims it has taken control of among the most notorious deception facilities on the boundary with Thailand, as it reclaims important area previously lost in the continuing civil war.

KK Park, located south of the border town of Myawaddy, has been linked with internet scams, money laundering and forced labor for the past five years.

Countless people were enticed to the facility with promises of lucrative employment, and then forced to manage sophisticated scams, extracting substantial sums of money from victims across the world.

The armed forces, long stained by its links to the fraud business, now declares it has seized the facility as it expands control around Myawaddy, the main commercial link to Thailand.

In the past few weeks, the military has pushed back insurgents in multiple parts of Myanmar, seeking to maximise the number of territories where it can conduct a scheduled vote, commencing in December.

It currently doesn't control significant territories of the state, which has been divided by hostilities since a military coup in February 2021.

The vote has been disregarded as a fraud by opposition forces who have sworn to prevent it in areas they control.

KK Park commenced with a rental contract in early 2020 to construct an industrial park between the ethnic organization (KNU), the armed ethnic faction which controls much of this region, and a little-known HK stock market company, Huanya International.

Researchers suspect there are relationships between Huanya and a notable Chinese criminal personality Wan Kuok Koi, more commonly called Broken Tooth, who has later invested in other fraud hubs on the border.

The compound developed swiftly, and is readily visible from the Thailand territory of the frontier.

Those who were able to escape from it detail a violent environment established on the countless people, numerous from African countries, who were held there, made to work long hours, with mistreatment and beatings inflicted on those who did not manage to achieve targets.

A statement by the junta's communications department said its personnel had "cleared" KK Park, freeing in excess of 2,000 laborers there and taking possession of 30 of Elon Musk's Starlink communication devices – commonly employed by deception facilities on the border boundary for digital activities.

The declaration accused what it called the "extremist" KNU and volunteer people's defence forces, which have been fighting the military since the takeover, for illegally holding the region.

The military's declaration to have closed this notorious scam centre is almost certainly aimed at its key supporter, China.

Beijing has been pressuring the military and the Thailand government to do more to stop the illegal operations operated by Asian organizations on their shared frontier.

Previously in the year many of China-based workers were removed of scam facilities and flown on arranged aircraft back to China, after Thailand cut access to energy and energy provisions.

But KK Park is only one of at least 30 comparable facilities situated on the frontier.

Most of these are under the control of Karen armed units allied to the junta, and most are presently active, with countless people managing scams inside them.

In fact, the assistance of these militia groups has been crucial in enabling the armed forces drive back the KNU and further opposition factions from land they captured over the past two years.

The junta now dominates almost all of the route linking Myawaddy to the rest of Myanmar, a objective the military determined before it organizes the opening round of the vote in December.

It has seized Lay Kay Kaw, a modern community founded for the KNU with Japan-based investment in 2015, a time when there had been expectations for permanent tranquility in Karen State following a nationwide peace agreement.

That represents a more important setback to the KNU than the capture of KK Park, from which it did get a certain amount of funds, but where the majority of the monetary gains were directed to pro-junta paramilitary forces.

A well-placed contact has revealed that scam activities is continuing in KK Park, and that it is likely the junta seized just a portion of the sprawling complex.

The contact also suspects Beijing is supplying the Burmese military lists of Chinese people it seeks removed from the deception facilities, and sent back to stand trial in China, which may explain why KK Park was targeted.