India on Thursday was flying in the first batch of hundreds of its citizens who fled the scam center in Myanmar to Thailand in October.
The KK Park center was a major cyber crime cell operating on the outskirts of the border town of Myawaddy when the Myanmar military raided it in mid-October. According to local Thai officials, the raid took more than 1,500 people from 28 countries to the Thai border town of Mae Sot.
Of these, 465 were Indian passport holders. Other nationalities include Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Ethiopian and Kenyan.
An Indian Air Force transport plane took off from Thailand on Thursday carrying 270 people, according to Thai Major General Maitri Chupricha. The remaining people will be brought to India on Monday.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs confirmed the repatriation to DW via text message.
online scam center
Southeast Asia is a global hub of digital scam operations, where hundreds of thousands of people are lured to countries such as Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia in exchange for jobs.
In early 2024, DW investigated the KK Park compound, reporting how people trapped there were forced to betray others online with threats of torture and even murder.
DW’s investigative unit went to the border areas of Thailand and Myanmar to track down the criminals behind this multimillion-euro operation. Along the way, they uncover a vast criminal network reaching back to a notorious Chinese triad boss.
In March, India brought back 549 citizens following an earlier crackdown on cyber crime operations along the Myanmar-Thai border.
Edited by: Kieran Burke