A SENIOR police officer said only 1% of workers at scam hubs in neighbouring countries were lured by the gangsters with the rest having willingly joined their transnational criminal bosses in scamming victims worldwide, Thai Rath newspaper said today (Feb. 13).
Pol. Gen. Thatchai Pitaneelabut, head of the Centre for the Protection of Children, Women, Families, Human Trafficking Prevention and Suppression and Fisheries, said his team was preparing to hold talks with ambassadors of various countries on the plan to receive call-centre workers crossing over to Thailand from Myanmar but not all of them will be listed as victims.
Deputy Prime Minister/Defence Minister Phumthan Wechayachai said yesterday that as many as 7,000 victims of call centre gangs holed up along the Thai-Myanmar border are being released and sent across to Thailand on top of 261 who did so yesterday.
The government had on Feb. 5 cut off electricity, Internet and fuel supplies from five points to three Myanmar townships abutting the Thai border – Tachileik, Myawaddy and Payathonzu – which led to hundreds of workers returning yesterday and today.
Immigration Police data shows people from many countries used Mae Sot town to cross over to Myawaddy township and among them were those who did not have a travel plan nor booked accommodation.
Pol. Gen. Thatchai added that almost a hundred percent of those who crossed the border to work at these scam hubs went there voluntarily with none of them deceived except for only around 1% who were really hoodwinked to do so, such as the case of Chinese actor Xingxing who was released after a few days of captivity.
He also mentioned the case of four Japanese citizens who were arrested after crossing back and forth to the neighbouring country via natural channels several times as investigation found that they were involved in human trafficking and deceiving people to work at Myawaddy.
However the victims are from many countries with Chinese gangsters also luring their country people to work at these scam hubs.
The scam centre bosses in Myanmar mostly hired Thais to open mule accounts with those in Cambodia and Laos luring Thais into their criminal network,
Thai police are now accepting call-centre victims crossing back to Thailand with the Border Command Centre taking full care of them.
On Monday Feb. 17 ambassadors of various countries will be invited to prepare to accept their citizens.
Screening to separate victims from scammers is underway with data from Thai police and various embassies being used to separate them.
Most recently the Philippines embassy identified one person claiming to be a victim but was actually a human trafficking suspect.
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Hundreds of call-centre workers crossing over to Thailand. Photos on this page: Naewna, Front Page photo: Thai Rath
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