Myanmar's army says it wants to eradicate scam compounds. Is it really doing that?

The serenity of a late afternoon on the Moei River that divides Thailand from Myanmar is broken by three thunderous explosions. The ethnic Karen families bathing and playing in the water make a panicked dash for the river bank, as a plume of dark smoke rises from the trees behind them.

The conflict ignited by the Myanmar military's coup nearly five years ago has come back to the border.

But the fighting this time is linked to the scam compounds, run by Chinese crime syndicates, which have proliferated in Karen State in the past two years.

"We are working to completely eradicate online scam activities from their roots," the Myanmar junta's spokesman Gen Zaw Min Tun said.

But there are good reasons for scepticism about the military's claims.

Not for the first time, Myanmar's long civil war and its scam crisis are entwined.