BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand is studying the idea of building a wall on part of its its border with Cambodia to prevent illegal crossings, its government said on Monday, as a multi-national effort to dismantle a sprawling network of illicit scam centres mounts.
The crackdown is widening against scam centres responsible for carrying out massive financial fraud out of Southeast Asia, especially those on Thailand’s porous borders with Myanmar and Cambodia, where hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked by criminal gangs in recent years, according to the United Nations.
At the weekend, Thai police received 119 Thai nationals from Cambodian authorities after a raid in the town of Poipet pulled out over 215 people from a scam compound.
“If it is done, how will it be done? What results and how will it solve problems? This is a study,” Thai government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said of the wall proposal, without specifying its length.
Cambodia’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the wall proposal.
Thailand and Cambodia share a border of 817 km (508 miles). The Thai defence ministry has previously proposed a wall to block off a 55 km natural crossing between Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province and Poipet, which at present is only protected by razor wire.
Telecom fraud centres have been operating for years in Southeast Asia, ensnaring people of multiple countries as far away as West Africa.
They have faced heightened scrutiny after the rescue in January of Chinese actor, Wang Xing, who was lured to Thailand with the promise of a job before being abducted and taken to a scam centre in Myanmar.
In Myanmar’s Myawaddy, more than 7,000 foreigners – mostly from China – are waiting to cross from into Thailand, which is coordinating with embassies to to try to streamline their repatriations.
Hundreds of foreigners pulled out of the compounds are in limbo in squalid conditions in a militia camp and struggling to secure a route home, according to some detainees, while a top Thai lawmaker last week said the crackdown is insufficient, estimating 300,000 people have been operating in compounds in Myawaddy alone.
(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat and Chayut Setboonsarng; Additional reporting by Prak Chan Thul; Editing by Martin Petty)
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