HUNDREDS of people believed to have been trafficked and trapped into working in online scam centres are to be repatriated after being rescued from Myanmar, Thailand’s military has announced.

In a fresh crackdown on scam centres operating from south-east Asia, the Thai army said on Thursday it was co-ordinating an effort to repatriate some 260 people believed to have been victims of human trafficking after they were rescued and sent from Myanmar to Thailand.

Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, which share borders with Thailand, have become known as havens for criminal syndicates that are estimated to have forced hundreds of thousands of people in south-east Asia and elsewhere into helping run online scams, including false romantic ploys, bogus investment pitches and illegal gambling schemes.

Such scams have extracted tens of billions of dollars from victims around the world, according to UN experts, while the people recruited to carry them out have often been tricked into taking the jobs under false pretences and trapped in virtual slavery.

An earlier crackdown on scam centres in Myanmar was initiated in late 2023 after China expressed concern over illegal casinos and scam operations in Myanmar’s northern state of Shan along its border.

Ethnic guerilla groups with close ties to Beijing shut down many operations and an estimated 45,000 Chinese nationals suspected of involvement were repatriated.

The army said that those rescued in the most recent operation came from 20 countries — with significant numbers from Ethiopia, Kenya, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan and China.

There were also nationals of Indonesia, Nepal, Taiwan, Uganda, Laos, Brazil, Burundi, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Ghana and India.

They were sent across the border from Myanmar’s Myawaddy district to Thailand’s Tak province on Wednesday.

Thai media reports said that the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, a Myanmar ethnic militia that controls the area where the workers were held, was responsible for freeing them and taking them to the border.

Myanmar’s military government exercises little control over frontier areas where ethnic minorities predominate.

Several ethnic militias are believed to be involved in criminal activities, including drug trafficking and protecting call-centre scam operations.

The Thai army statement said the rescued people would undergo questioning and, if determined to be victims of human trafficking, would enter a process of protection while waiting to be sent back to their home countries.

Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, who is also defence minister, said on Wednesday that there might be many more scam workers waiting to be repatriated from Myanmar through Thailand, but that Thailand would only receive those that are ready to be taken back by their country of origin immediately.

“I’ve made it clear that Thailand is not going to set up another shelter,” he told reporters during a visit in Sa Kaeo province, which borders Cambodia.

Thailand hosts nine refugee camps along the borde, holding more than 100,000 people, mostly from Myanmar’s ethnic Karen minority.

Mr Phumtham added that Thailand would also need to question them before sending them back, to make sure that they were victims of human trafficking and to extract information that would help the police investigate the trafficking and scam problems.

On a visit to China in early February, Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra joined her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in vowing to crack down on scam networks.

Many dramatic stories of Chinese people being lured to work in Bangkok, only to be trafficked into a scam compound in Myanmar, have surfaced. Chinese actor Wang Xing was a high-profile example, but he was quickly rescued after his tale spread on social media.