For a compound that hosted one of the largest cyberscam and human-trafficking hubs in Southeast Asia, KK Park operated in plain sight. It was pretty clear that this was no ordinary business — the heavily fortified compound in Myanmar was flanked by armed guards. It was all visible from neighboring Thailand.
The vast complex, estimated to be around 520 acres, contained high-rise buildings, dormitories, offices, restaurants, a hospital and villas, suggesting an industrial-scale operation in the town of Myawaddy.
Last week, some of the activity abruptly ended. The Myanmar junta moved in to detain thousands of foreigners at KK Park and Shwe Kokko, another notorious cyberscam hub. For good measure, it also deployed a stunning tactic: demolishing entire buildings with explosives, part of what the junta has called a broader crackdown on scam centers.
But workers and experts say the crackdown is performative.
Satellite imagery shows that only 13 percent of the total area of KK Park has been demolished, according to Nathan Ruser, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The Myanmar junta said it was committed to destroying the more than 500 buildings that remain, but workers say they have moved on to other compounds, where they continue to defraud people.
“Just blowing up a bunch of empty buildings in an angry, haphazard fashion might be demonstrative of a show of force, but, practically, it’s nothing,” said Jacob Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center and an expert on transnational crime. “They haven’t done an actual raid on these compounds. No kingpins of KK Park have been turned over.”
The demolition, along with the crushing of hundreds of computers with a steamroller, was broadcast on state media for days. It was proof, according to Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a spokesman for the junta, that the army would “completely eradicate online scam activities from their roots.”
“We worked to prevent any chance of online gambling operations re-establishing themselves,” he said, according to The New Light of Myanmar newspaper. “To achieve that, we destroyed 100 percent of the buildings in that area.”
A key person behind the scam compounds along the border of Myanmar and Thailand is Col. Saw Chit Thu, a warlord and businessman who controls the Karen Border Guard Forces, known as the B.G.F., a subdivision of the Myanmar army, the United States and Britain say.
In January 2023, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief, conferred an honorary award on Colonel Saw Chit Thu for “outstanding performance” and loyalty. Satellite imagery shows that KK Park is surrounded by at least four armed outposts, according to Mr. Ruser. Workers inside say the compound was guarded by soldiers from the B.G.F.
The B.G.F. works with Chinese mafia groups to operate some 40 scam compounds that are home to as many as 100,000 people along the 124-mile stretch of the Myanmar-Thailand border, according to Jason Tower, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
Starting in 2023, the junta came under pressure from China, its closest ally, to quell the scam centers because Chinese citizens were being defrauded and trafficked. But even then, the crackdown was selective. Beijing cared only about its own citizens, Mr. Tower said.
The recent involvement of the United States, which set up a Scam Center Strike Force, put new pressure on China. “That’s why you’re seeing a push now by China for a stronger crackdown,” Mr. Tower said.
Naing Mg Zaw, a spokesman for the B.G.F., denied that the crackdown was because of U.S. or Chinese pressure. “We had already decided to crack down on scam centers, and the timing just happens to overlap,” he said. “Within a few days, we will clear them out until none are left.”
But interviews with former workers show how difficult it will be to eradicate the criminal networks. Min Thu Win who worked in a scam center in Shwe Kokko, said his Chinese supervisors told workers to go home last week “because there might be raids coming.”
Sandy Lin, said she was working a night shift at a scam center in KK Park on Oct. 22 when people started running out, saying that soldiers were coming. Ms. Lin said her job was to target people over age 50 on Instagram, getting their contact details to pass on to “the chatting team.” She said she had to find two targets a day or have $1.60 deducted from her monthly salary of about $460.
“Our company has already rented a new building near Myawaddy, in a place called ‘25 Acre,’ and they’ve resumed operations,” she said. “Since everyone in our company is in the same Telegram group, all workers who want to continue working went to that new place,” she said, referring to the messaging app.
Than Soe said he fled KK Park without getting his salary. Now he is working at another scam compound called Apollo Park. “The military showed videos of destroying computers and phones, but that doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “They can buy new ones anytime. KK Park wasn’t really shut down, it was just for show.”
Sui-Lee Wee is the Southeast Asia bureau chief for The Times, overseeing coverage of 11 countries in the region.
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