Thailand has received 260 human trafficking victims, more than half of them Ethiopians, from Myanmar, its army said on Thursday, in a massive repatriation that comes amid a mounting crackdown on scam centers operating along a porous border. <\/p>\n
Criminal gangs have trafficked hundreds of thousands of people and forced them to work in illegal online operations generating billions annually across Southeast Asia, especially along the Thai-Myanmar border, according to the United Nations. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter screening the group and verifying their nationalities, it was found that there were 20 nationalities,\u201d the Thai army said in a statement, with 138 of them Ethiopians. <\/p>\n
Although these illegal operations have been in place for years, Thai authorities renewed efforts last month after Chinese actor Wang Xing was abducted in Thailand, lured on the promise of an acting job. <\/p>\n
He was later freed by Thai police who found him in Myanmar. <\/p>\n
On Wednesday, a large group of trafficking victims who were sent back from Myanmar\u2019s Myawaddy area were seen crossing the Moei River to Thailand, where they were directed onto Thai military vehicles as soldiers looked on. <\/p>\n
The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a Myanmar rebel group based along the Thai border, said it had found around 260 people from unspecified \u201cbusinesses\u201d when its personnel looked for forced labor in areas under its control. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know how they got here,\u201d the outfit\u2019s chief of staff Major Saw San Aung told Reuters. \u201cWe are continuing the search of forced labor, and we will send them back.\u201d <\/p>\n
Thailand earlier this month cut electricity, fuel and internet supply to parts of Myanmar where the illegal compounds operate, reflecting growing unease in Bangkok over the impact of scam centers on the vital tourism sector. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Thailand has received 260 human trafficking victims, more than half of them Ethiopians, from Myanmar, its army said on Thursday, in a massive repatriation that comes amid a mounting crackdown on scam centers operating along a porous border. Criminal gangs have trafficked hundreds of thousands of people and forced them to work in illegal online <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}