ROUNDED UP early this morning (Nov. 2) at a resort in Trat province, which shares a border with Cambodia, were nine Chinese men who had 48 mobile phones with them and believed to have fled the heavily bombed KK Park scam complex at Myawaddy township, Myanmar, which is opposite Mae Sot district, Tak, to travel onwards to the neighbouring country, TV Channel 7 said.
Upon being alerted by the resort owner that a group of Chinese men had checked into two rooms with none of them having a passport, a team of policemen from Mai Rut police station went there to investigate.
They were all brought to the police station but could not be questioned because none of them spoke English, only able to converse in Chinese language.
Later a Trat Provincial Police Investigation Division team went there and questioned one of the suspects with the help of a translator. However they only got limited information from him, finding out that his name was Xiao Chen, 26, and he came from Yunnan province but did not know where he currently was.
Further questioning later revealed that they had likely fled KK Park complex in Myawaddy to Thailand, the easiest escape route, with Thai nationals helping them slip through the border and then bringing them to Trat and from here they were being taken to the neighbouring country.
Karen Border Guard Force, which is allied with the Myanmar junta, has been using drones to bomb the huge scam hub for days leading to 1,575 workers from 28 countries crossing over to shelter on the Thai side.
Within the large number of mobile phones seized were job application forms, online gambling, money laundering and other applications clearly used to scam victims. Data had been deleted from some of the handsets.
The resort owner said some Thai nationals drove up in a black SUV and a van after having booked two large rooms and a small one. When they arrived he told them that the foreigners could not be allowed in but as it was raining heavily he then relented. The Thais refused to show their ID cards but paid for the rooms and all meals.
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The nine Chinese men arrested at a Trat resort. Photo – TV Channel 7
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