Global pressure forces Myanmar regime to crack down on scam centres, sources say

A day after regime leader Min Aung Hlaing visited the Karen State capital of Hpa-An last week, two sources said army officers met members of the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) with a directive: they had to suppress burgeoning scam centres on the Thai-Myanmar border immediately.

Online scam operations along the frontier are part of Southeast Asian criminal networks spanning countries including Myanmar and Cambodia that generate billions of dollars every year by defrauding people across the world, often using human trafficking victims.

At Sunday’s meeting, officers told BGF members—sanctioned in May by the U.S.

Treasury Department for facilitating cyber scams, human trafficking and smuggling—that the instructions had come directly from Min Aung Hlaing, according to two sources aware of the discussions.

“[Min Aung Hlaing] met with military officials and stated that the scam centre issue was severely damaging the country’s international reputation,” said one source with direct knowledge, referring to the regime leader’s orders.

“He urged them to carry out an aggressive crackdown before the election,” the source added, referring to the regime’s 2025-26 elections, starting on Dec. 28 and continuing into January 2025, which has been widely derided as a sham to legitimize military control.

Although the regime has publicly said it is participating in a multinational effort to curb scam centres, the sources indicated the military’s urgency to conduct operations may have been linked with anxiety over possible U.S. actions.

Last week’s announcement of a new U.S. government “Strike Force”, which includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service, has raised particular concern in Naypiydaw, both sources said.

A military official at Sunday’s meeting with the BGF explained that they could not risk U.S. teams crossing the border to start investigations, one source said, describing him as saying: “We must solve the problem ourselves.”