Thailand has cut power, internet and petrol supplies to Chinese scam factories operating near its Myanmar border.

While I’d like to report Thailand is finally acting to address years of rampant financial fraud, unfortunately it’s just trying to protect tourism.

Chinese scam factories, filled with human-trafficked Chinese and foreign national slaves, are behind the plague of “click a button” app Ponzis BehindMLM has been covering since 2021.

While the problem has been known for years, Thailand only recently began efforts to clean up the fraud hub along its border. While they’ve put in a token effort, Myanmar has struggled to contain the problem owing to a long-running civil war.

Thailand’s crackdown follows a series of high-profile abductions of Chinese nationals, which led to a drop in Chinese tourists.

As per the South China Morning Post in a paywalled February 5th article;

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.

Senior Thai police officials responsible for the border have been fired, and new liason offices have purportedly been set up to assist fleeing trafficked slaves.

Ahead of the planned power cut, fireworks erupted over Shwe Koko, a Chinese-linked special economic zone, which dominates the Myawaddy skyline.

Thai reports said the pyrotechnics were a show of defiance by scam operators working in an area protected by ethnic militia groups and the Myanmar junta.

Analysts warned that the scam operators were awash with cash and could move further south or rotate their operations around the Mekong to avoid any crackdown.

It should be noted Myanmar is just one hotspot Chinese organized crime interests operate from. There are others situated across south-east Asia.

Whether we see a drop in the daily “click a button” app Ponzi launches remains to be seen.