The last 128 of the current cohort of Chinese citizens, transferred into Mae Sot district of Thailand’s Tak province from the Myawaddy border township, are being repatriated today on China Southern Airlines flights chartered by the Chinese government.
Altogether 628 Chinese nationals, rescued from scam call centres in Myawaddy, will have been repatriated in three days.
The Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, described all the returnees as fraud suspects and each of them was escorted by two Chinese police officers on their flights from Mae Sot to southern China.
Regarding the remaining 405 people, of various nationalities rescued from call centres waiting to be transferred to Mae Sot, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army in Myawaddy, which is taking care of them, has told Burmese media that the presence of the foreigners poses a heavy financial and logistic burden on the Karen forces.
They also said that it remains unclear when Thailand will be ready for them to be transferred across the border.
Meanwhile, Thailand and Cambodia have agreed on some specific measures to deal with scam call centres in Cambodia.
Pol Gen Thatchai Pitaneelaboot, the police inspector-general and chief of the anti-human trafficking centre, was in Phnom Penh on Friday for talks with his Cambodian counterpart on cooperation in coping with online scamming operations and human trafficking.
Both sides agreed to stamp out all scam call centres in Cambodia, set up a bilateral coordination centre and to rescue Thai nationals who were duped to working in the call centres.
