Stragglers from Myanmar scam center raided by army cross into Thailand as buildings are blown up

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BANGKOK (AP) — The number of people fleeing from Myanmar to Thailand after Myanmar’s military shut down a major online scam center has slowed to a trickle, a Thai regional army commander said Tuesday, after more than 1,500 had left in the past week.

The KK Park site, identified by Thai officials and independent experts as housing a major cybercrime operation, was raided by Myanmar’s army in mid-October as part of operations starting in early September to suppress cross-border online scams and illegal gambling.

The center is located on the outskirts of Myawaddy, a major trading town on the border across from the Thai town of Mae Sot. The Myawaddy area is only loosely under the control of Myanmar’s military government, and shares power there with an allied local militia of the Karen ethnic minority operating as a Border Guard Force.

Witnesses on the Thai side of the border reported hearing explosions and seeing smoke coming from the center over the past several nights starting on Friday.

The Thai army's Naresuan Task Force, which operates in Thailand's northern region, said Monday that parts of KK Park were demolished by explosions carried out by Myanmar's military and its Border Guard Force allies. Debris from the blasts caused damage to several houses on the Thai side of the border.

The task force's commander, Maj. Gen. Maitree Chupreecha, told The Associated Press that 25 people from four nations crossed into Thailand on Tuesday, though he didn't identify their nationalities.

Those who fled Myanmar are mostly believed to have worked at the center, often under duress. The authorities in Thailand’s Tak province, who have set up temporary shelters for them, said they come from 28 countries, including Thailand. They are being processed to determine if they were victims of human trafficking and and then can be repatriated to their home countries, which include India, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Myanmar is notorious for hosting cyberscam operations, which recruit many of their workers from other countries under false pretenses, promising them legitimate jobs and then holding them captive and forcing them to carry out criminal activities. Myanmar's independent media, including The Irrawaddy, an online news service, have reported that online scams in Myanmar continue to operate in the Myawaddy area even after the raid on KK Park.

Cambodia is another major center for such operations, which garnered international attention on Oct. 14, when the United States and the United Kingdom enacted sanctions against organizers of a major Cambodian cyberscam gang, and its alleged ringleader was indicted by a U.S. federal court in New York.