This facility was in the news recently.
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/southeast-asia/myanmar-be...
Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
51–60 of 62 posts
Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
#52"It [starlink] does not have licensed operations in Myanmar, but at least hundreds of terminals have been smuggled into the Southeast Asian nation." So how do starlinks work in Myanmar if it's not licensed?
That is a good question. https://starlink.com/map shows neither Myanmar, Thailand or Laos having coverage. Perhaps they were using the "roam" version ( https://starlink.com/roam ), which seems to work pretty much anywhere.
I manage a maritime starlink installation. The geofence rules are very odd. Starlink is not licensed in either Cambodia or Thailand. When my ship was in Cambodia starlink automatically disconnected, but when we sailed into Thailand it came back online - despite both countries not having starlink available.
Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
#53This is a great interactive article about what it's like to be kidnapped and forced to work in these scam centers on the Myanmar border, lured by promise of jobs people are trapped, passports confiscated, phones stolen, 16-hour workdays spent defrauding victims online, cultivating fake relationships and pressuring them into investment or romance scams: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/my...
I got a lot less snarky in my responses to scam text messages when I learned about the forced labor aspect. I just block the sender and go on, versus trying to bait them and waste their time. For awhile I was asking "Is there someone I can contact for you?", but then I got worried that would get somebody a beating.
> versus trying to bait them and waste their time.
At least that prevents someone else getting scammed sooner.
Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not actually the scammers that are redeeming the gift cards - instead they are in turn reselling the codes on marketplaces (to legitimate customers) for a small loss as a way of laundering them. From Google's perspective - someone bought a gift card in the US, and redeemed it somewhere else in the US, aka the expected behavior of legitimate gift card usage.
Gift cards are an idea whose time has passed. All they seem useful now is for scams and laundering money. All this plastic waste and fraud, so that a few legit customers can turn general-purpose money into company-specific money. Ridiculous product that should go away.
Another use for the companies are the loyalty programs. I'm using the "buy for a discount from one company to use at another company" continuously for ongoing shopping.
Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
#55As early as a few years ago, these people were engaged in fraudulent activities in Southeast Asia. Most of them were Chinese, but the Chinese government was too soft and did not take effective measures against the fraud. As a result, for a long time, these people did not receive the approval of the dispute until a Korean appeared.
Wasn’t that it was soft, it was actually actively assisting the ops
Maybe some corrupt low-level official, but the national government was definitely trying to crack down.
Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
#56The culprit organization works closely with the junta, and they became active after the coup. (https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/myanmars-crisis-the-world/tho...)
Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got a lot less snarky in my responses to scam text messages when I learned about the forced labor aspect. I just block the sender and go on, versus trying to bait them and waste their time. For awhile I was asking "Is there someone I can contact for you?", but then I got worried that would get somebody a beating.
> versus trying to bait them and waste their time. At least that prevents someone else getting scammed sooner.
I read somewhere about the operators receiving beatings when they failed to get a promising "lead" to produce. I don't want to give the appearance of being a promising lead anymore.
Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
#58This is a great interactive article about what it's like to be kidnapped and forced to work in these scam centers on the Myanmar border, lured by promise of jobs people are trapped, passports confiscated, phones stolen, 16-hour workdays spent defrauding victims online, cultivating fake relationships and pressuring them into investment or romance scams: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/my...
This has been going on for a while and they didn't do anything about it. What changed?
Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
#59This is a great interactive article about what it's like to be kidnapped and forced to work in these scam centers on the Myanmar border, lured by promise of jobs people are trapped, passports confiscated, phones stolen, 16-hour workdays spent defrauding victims online, cultivating fake relationships and pressuring them into investment or romance scams: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/my...
Re: Myanmar military shuts down a major cybercrime center, detains over 2k people
#60This is a great interactive article about what it's like to be kidnapped and forced to work in these scam centers on the Myanmar border, lured by promise of jobs people are trapped, passports confiscated, phones stolen, 16-hour workdays spent defrauding victims online, cultivating fake relationships and pressuring them into investment or romance scams: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/my...
This has been going on for a while and they didn't do anything about it. What changed?
They probably became aware of the size of the pie, and decided to go for it themselves.. I know different country, but similar operation.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/14/bitcoin-doj-chen-zhi-pig-but...