BANGKOK: More than 1,000 people, mostly Chinese, have fled from Myanmar into Thailand this week, Thai authorities said on Friday, after the Myanmar military raided one of the country’s largest scam centres.

Sprawling cyberscam hubs, where fraudsters swindle victims through online cons, have flouris­hed along Myanmar’s loo­sely governed border during its years-long civil war.

While some scammers are trafficked into the often-fortified compounds, experts say others work voluntarily, hoping to earn more in the multibillion-dollar illicit industry than they can at home.

Around 40 people who had left the KK Park scam compound, including Taiwanese and others from several African nations, took small boats across the Moei river to Thailand on Friday, local officials said.

Thai security personnel waiting on the other side searched their luggage and documents while people handed over their cell phones and loaded into the back of trucks, video published showed.

Thailand’s Tak provincial office said 1,049 people had crossed from Myanmar into Mae Sot district from Wednesday to Friday morning — up from the 677 who had fled KK Park as of Thursday morning.

Nationals from Pakistan, India, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand and more than a dozen other countries were among them, the office said in a statement.

Thailand’s Immigration Bureau said most were Chinese and men.

Myanmar’s junta said Monday it raided KK Park, located just across the border from Thailand, and seized Starlink satellite devices.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2025