NAYPYIDAW, Nov 21 (Reuters): A day after Myanmar's junta leader visited the southeastern city of Hpa-An last week, two sources said army officers met members of a powerful local militia with a directive: they had to suppress burgeoning scam centres on the Thai-Myanmar border immediately.
Online scam operations along the frontier are part of Southeast Asian criminal networks spanning countries including Myanmar and Cambodia that generate billions of dollars every year by defrauding people across the world, often using human trafficking victims.
At Sunday's meeting, officers told members of the Karen National Army (KNA) - sanctioned in May by the US Treasury Department for facilitating cyber scams, human trafficking and smuggling - that the instructions had come directly from the junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, according to two sources aware of the discussions.
"(Min Aung Hlaing) met with military officials and stated that the scam centre issue was severely damaging the country's international reputation," said one source with direct knowledge, referring to the junta chief's orders.
"He urged them to carry out an aggressive crackdown before the election," the source added, referring to the junta's multi-phase general election, starting on Dec. 28, which has been widely derided as a sham to perpetuate the military's control.
Although the junta has publicly said it is participating in a multinational effort to curb scam centres, the sources indicated the military's urgency to conduct operations may have been linked with anxiety over possible US actions.
Last week's announcement of a new US government "Strike Force", which includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service, has raised particular concern in Myanmar's junta, both sources said.
A military official at Sunday's meeting with the KNA explained that they could not risk US teams crossing the border to start investigations, one source said, describing him as saying: "We must solve the problem ourselves."
