China raises stakes in cyberscam crackdown in Myanmar, though loopholes remain

BANGKOK (AP) — China is ramping up a crackdown on online scams operated by criminal syndicates in border areas of military-ruled Myanmar in an effort that has included a shootout, confession videos and national TV broadcasts of arrests of high-profile suspects.

But the drive has been confined to a limited area and appears unlikely to root out the kingpins behind the human trafficking and other illicit activities aimed at cheating people of their savings via phone calls and online overtures, schemes that are thought to generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue a year.

Over the summer, China announced a series of joint operations with neighboring countries that led to thousands of people being returned to China, many of whom had been lured by the promise of high-paying jobs. Experts say many are victims who were forced into conducting the scams. Those campaigns did not include arrests of ring leaders in Myanmar.

“As soon as we discover them, we hand them over,” said Lu Jiantang, the vice-chair of foreign affairs in Wa, whose job is ensuring that people fleeing fighting in neighboring areas do not include scammers.

On Nov. 18, China’s Ministry of Public Security announced that authorities in northern Myanmar had handed over some 31,000 suspects. Among them, police said, 63 were key players of scamming groups, the police said.

“China seems to be very focused and intent on cleaning its border,” said Jason Tower, an expert on Myanmar’s cyberscam industry at the U.S. Congress-backed think tank United States Institute of Peace said.

Among those arrested are a few related to some of the most powerful people in two special administrative zones close to China’s border with military-ruled Myanmar.

The Kokang Self-Administered Zone and the Wa Self-Administered Division both...