 "Myanmar repatriates more than 100 Chinese nationals in third batch of scam centre crackdown")
Myanmar handed over more than 100 Chinese scam centre workers to be repatriated through Thailand on Saturday, the third batch in a major crackdown on the illegal operations.
Hundreds of foreigners are expected to be sent home from scam compounds in Myanmar over the coming weeks, with the first two batches already flown out on Thursday and Friday.
The compounds are run by criminal gangs and staffed by foreigners, many of whom say they were trafficked and forced to swindle people around the world in protracted internet scams.
Myanmar’s junta said in a statement that a third group of 111 Chinese nationals was handed over on Saturday via the Thailand-Myanmar Friendship Bridge 2 at the Thai border town of Mae Sot.
Live footage on Thai media outlet The Reporters showed people disembarking from two double-decker coaches and boarding a Southern China Airlines plane, a scene similar to that witnessed by AFP journalists on Thursday.
It said that the first 50 Chinese nationals boarded a 10:40 am (0340 GMT) flight, with the rest expected to depart on two additional flights throughout the day.
On Saturday, Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai described the scam centre problem as a “complex transnational crime”.
As well as stopping fuel supplies and cutting electricity to suspected scam hubs on the Myanmar side, he had instructed senior Thai police to bolster border control measures, he said in a post on his official Facebook account.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsMany of those freed from scam centres say they were duped into working in them and held against their will, but the Chinese government and state media have described them all as “suspects”.
On Friday Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun hailed the “thunder-style cooperation” between China, Myanmar and Thailand to tackle the scam centres.
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