Myanmar KK Park Scam Headquarters Raided, 700 Foreigners Cross To Thailand

UNSPLASH/Alexander Schemmeck ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - Nearly 700 foreign nationals fled Myanmar and crossed into Thailand. This incident follows a military operation against KK Park, a well-known cyber crime complex.

Thailand detained 677 people, including 618 men and 59 women, after they crossed the border into Tak Province.

The Myanmar military has taken control of the KK Park and is investigating the area, expelling large numbers of people to Thailand.

These people are now undergoing legal procedures and examinations, and Thai authorities have also provided additional detention facilities if existing places are insufficient, the military said.

"All actions are in line with legal and humanitarian principles," the Thai military said.

The military is working closely with local security agencies to maintain order along the Thailand-Myanmar border.

The group consists mostly of individuals from India and China, with numbers smaller than Vietnam, Pakistan, Indonesia, and several other countries, the military said.

KK Park in Myanmar is a pocket area that is well known for its involvement in cyber fraud by law enforcement and international diplomats.

The vast complexes of KK Park and other complexes around it are mostly managed by Chinese criminal gangs and guarded by local militia groups affiliated with the Myanmar military.

The border areas between Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia have been the center of online fraud since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the United Nations (UN) says billions of dollars have been obtained from human trafficking against hundreds of thousands of people forced to work in fraudulent complexes.