(Staff post from the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST on 22 July 2023.)
Survivors of Myanmar’s Scam Mills Talk ‘Torture,’
Death, Organ Harvesting—and the Battle To Escape: Those in charge of Myanmar’s
scam centres don’t want the world to see what’s going on inside. Phones are
confiscated upon arrival and work devices are wiped before anyone leaves, as
scam bosses go to great lengths to hide their crimes.
Jane and Max, two Filipinos forced to work for one
of the criminal outfits along Myanmar’s border with Thailand, were made to wait
an additional 10 days before their eventual release in early July to allow
their wounds to heal. “They held us because of our bruises,” Jane said, showing
scars on her back and shoulders. “They didn’t want anyone to see.”
Despite these cover-up efforts, evidence of widespread and severe abuse is mounting. Footage supplied to This Week in Asia by victims and anti-trafficking activists shows electrocutions, beatings and workers who are handcuffed, blindfolded and forced to sleep in overcrowded rooms.
The videos were shot on camera phones and the
locations and times could not be independently verified, but they paint a grim
picture of the abuse being inflicted by the scam gangs of Kayin state’s
Myawaddy township and its surrounds.
Tens of thousands of workers from around the world
have been trafficked into the industry, which took root around 2019 and then
went into overdrive following Myanmar’s 2021 military coup. Victims inside are
punished for failing to meet high targets set by their bosses, or for simply
asking to go home.
“Each and every second is like torture in here,”
Ashraf, a Nepali victim, told This Week in Asia before his release in late
July. For some, the abuse inside turns deadly.
Grace Mata was trafficked to KK Park, in the
Myawaddy area, in July last year. Four months later, the 22-year-old Kenyan was
transported back to Thailand unconscious and admitted to a hospital in the Thai
border town of Mae Sot in a critical condition. She died almost two weeks
later.
Mechelle Moore, CEO of Mae Sot-based
anti-trafficking NGO Global Alms, said the young woman underwent a botched
surgery “illegally carried out at a hospital inside KK Park. We tried to get
the family here, but we couldn’t fast enough, so I ended up having to turn off
the machine,” said Moore, who provided a letter from the Kenyan embassy in
Thailand granting her power of attorney for Mata. “I pulled out the tube and
watched her slowly pass.”
Moore believes that the doctors who operated on
Mata were brought in to harvest organs – a practice that survivors told This
Week in Asia they had heard rumours about. Jane said blood testing became
compulsory for new arrivals in her section of KK Park this year. Most “assume
it’s for organ trafficking,” she said.
Industrial-scale scamming requires a deep pool of workers – mainly young English and Chinese-language speakers in need of work after the lean pandemic years. Most trafficked into these compounds have no idea they’re in Myanmar until it’s too late. For Grey, a young Filipino man, it was only when he saw the Myanmar flag that he realised he wasn’t in Thailand. "The company is treating us like animals. Help us, I’m begging you."
Grey landed in Bangkok and travelled through
Thailand to Myanmar – the most common route. A smaller number, like Nepal
national Ashraf, fly into Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, and are driven east
through the war-torn country.
Thinking he was in Thailand, where he was told he
would be working, Ashraf was still seeking confirmation six months after his
arrival. “Which country? Can you please tell me?” he asked This Week in Asia in
June after sharing his live location.
Arjun, an Indian national speaking from inside a
compound on behalf of a group from across South Asia, said they haven’t been
paid since March. When they went on strike in April, they were locked in a room
with no electricity or food for three days. The compound’s name has been
withheld for the group’s safety.
“The company is treating us like animals,” he
wrote. “Help us, I’m begging you.” He showed This Week in Asia his
communications with India’s embassy in Yangon asking for help, as well as an
April letter sent by the embassy to Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
requesting support. When asked about Arjun’s case, an embassy representative,
who asked not to be named, said that “getting things done” is “very difficult.”
“These are not areas where the police can go and
get the people out. The government does not have any direct influence over
these compounds,” he said, referring to the military junta that seized power
more than two years ago. In the absence of official law-enforcement channels,
governments and NGOs are largely restricted to offering support once victims
have made their way back to Thailand.
The fastest and easiest way to leave is for workers
to terminate their “contracts” with large cash payments calculated by how much
they earned the scam gang, minus inflated fees for transport and recruitment.
Workers often leave saddled with debt after
emptying their savings, taking out loans and borrowing from family and friends
to scrape the money together. This was how Ashraf finally secured his release
in mid-July, forking over US$10,000.
Though promised high wages, most end up leaving in a significantly worse financial position than when they entered. “They didn’t give us our salary, they stole our money, they stole our jewellery,” Jane said.
As people returning from Myanmar’s scam centres
usually cross back into Thailand upon release, NGOs can find themselves accused
of human trafficking if they assist. Further complicating matters, most victims
initially enter Thailand as tourists before being taken to Myanmar, only
returning to their country of arrival long after their visas have expired.
Facing overstay charges, many are advised to
surrender to immigration authorities who can proceed with court proceedings
that usually see them convicted, fined and temporarily banned from re-entering
Thailand. The alternative – registering under Thailand’s National Referral
Mechanism, created last year to process trafficking victims – results in a
months-long investigation.
Moore said that 90 per cent of the more than 450
people she’s worked with “choose to go home as soon as possible” by turning
themselves into immigration officials without lodging a formal complaint. “So
much of this is going under the radar,” she added. “We have no idea how big
this is.”
Belarusian Model's Organs Were Harvested at Shwe Kokko
The Mynamar junta has reassured Belarus, one of its
handful of allies, that it is combating online scammers after a Belarusian
woman was reportedly tortured to death and dismembered for organ transplants in
a scam center in Myanmar.
Speaking at a security conference in the Belarus capital of Minsk on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Than Swe said Myanmar is combating online fraud in close cooperation with China and Thailand.
“It is essential to cut off criminal financing as it will help resolve conflicts,” he said during the Third Minsk International Conference on Eurasian Security, according to Belarusian news agency Belta. The Foreign Ministry quoted him as claiming Myanmar had detained 67,751 foreigners from 52 countries involved in online scams and repatriated them to their respective countries over two years.
The Belarusian victim, Vera Kravtsova, 26, was
hired as a model and traveled to Bangkok on Sept. 14, boarding an onward flight
to Yangon five days later, immigration records show. But she lost contact with
her family on Oct. 4 and the Embassy of Belarus in Vietnam received a request
for assistance from her family.
Later Kravtsova’s relatives were informed of her
death and cremation of her body in Myawaddy Township on Thai border, an area
riddled with scam compounds. The scammers reportedly demanded US$500,000 to
release her ashes. A Russian news agency reported that she had been forced to
work in a scam compound and, when she failed to meet her targets, tortured to
death and dismembered for organ sales.
Search activities in Myanmar continue, Belarus
Ambassador Vladimir Borovikov said earlier this month. The Myanmar military
regime has made no official comment on the case. The United States Institute of
Peace estimates that the scam centers enrich the junta to the tune of half the
$192 million earned annually by its affiliate Karen Border Guard Force (BGF),
which runs the area, from the Shwekokko scam business park in Myawaddy.
Major ally and arms supplier: Belarus is one of
Myanmar’s junta’s few close allies. Relations between the two countries grew
warmer after the coup in 2021, when Minsk voted against a UN General Assembly
resolution banning arms sales to Myanmar.
Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing visited Belarus
in June, his second trip this year, to attend the 4th Eurasian Economic Forum
at the invitation of President Alexander Lukashenko. A dictator himself,
Lukashenko has thrown his full support behind the junta’s planned election,
promising to send monitors to what has widely been denounced as a charade.
In Tuesday’s speech, Than Swe admitted that crime
syndicates shifted their scam operations to Myanmar during the COVID-19
pandemic.
Earlier, multiple overseas media outlets reported
that Kravtsova was kidnapped shortly after arriving in Bangkok on a modeling
offer and taken to a northern Myanmar region controlled by a criminal
organization. Her passport and mobile phone confiscated, she was allegedly
forced into a so-called “cyber scam camp,” where she was compelled to engage in
online fraud.
After failing to meet the organization’s financial
targets, her communication with family was cut off. Her family later received
news of her death and were demanded 18 million Thai baht (approximately 670
million Korean won) for the return of her body.
When her family refused, the organization
reportedly informed them, “The body has already been cremated.” According to
Russian media outlet SHOT, Kravtsova was sold to an organ trafficking
organization, had her organs removed, and her body was incinerated.
Recently, international organized human trafficking
crimes have surged in Southeast Asia. Many victims are young female models or
freelance entertainers, lured by promises of high income, only to face
confinement, violence, exploitation, and even murder after visiting the
proposed countries.
