Thailand shuts power to Myanmar’s scam hub, PM Paetongtarn vows firm action

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is slated to meet President Xi Jinping to discuss issues including the scam crisis

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Thai Deputy PM Anutin Charnvirakul (centre) speaks on the shutdown of power supplies to alleged scam operations across the Thai-Myanmar border. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 7:16pm, 5 Feb 2025Updated: 2:47pm, 6 Feb 2025

Thailand has pulled the plug on electricity and internet access to Myanmar border areas bristling with scam factories, in a belated effort to disrupt fraud operations being carried out by illegally sending logistics and people across the border.

Bangkok has faced diplomatic blowback for failing to help eradicate these syndicates, which are mostly clustered around the Myawaddy area of Myanmar, particularly since the high-profile rescue of Chinese actor Wang Xing last month from a scam park close to the Thai border in Tak province.

The incident triggered outrage across social media in China and prompted holidaymakers from Thailand’s most important tourism market to cancel their plans to travel to the kingdom.

Attention has focused on Thailand being used as a transit hub by criminal syndicates to lure and transport unsuspecting workers, as well as SIM cards, satellite links and petrol for the scam compounds to operate.

Thai authorities have consistently said it is impossible to combat these scam operators based beyond the kingdom, arguing that its geography makes it virtually impossible to police the long and remote frontiers to Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

But following a visit by China’s Assistant Public Security Minister Liu Zhongyi to address the scam crisis, Thailand launched its biggest crackdown to date against the criminal syndicates.