Purgatory for telecom crimes not paradise

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security, Thailand's National Police, the Myanmar Police Force and the Lao Ministry of Public Security held a meeting in Thailand's Chiang Mai last week to initiate a special joint operation to crack down on gambling and fraud in the region, as well as human trafficking, kidnapping, illegal detention and other crimes.

This is undoubtedly a welcome move as telecom frauds, especially those originating from the north of Myanmar, have become so rampant that urging the people to raise their alert to phone calls from strangers has become a daily routine of almost all grassroots police officers and bank clerks, who are required to tirelessly remind their customers to be extremely careful before transferring money to strangers.

At the same time, some jobless young people are lured by "well-paid jobs overseas" to the region of Myanmar near the border or sent there by human traffickers where what awaits them, as exposed by many cases, is forced labor. They are forced to make phone calls to strangers throughout the day in a bid to swindle money from them according to different playbooks that have been constantly adapted and proved effective and "yellow pages" leaked through various channels, including e-commerce, social media, logistics platforms and financial agencies. Those caught trying to escape face torture.

It is clear that complete cross-border industry and supply chains involving personnel from China, Myanmar and other countries have been formed.

The question is for how long will the region continue to be allowed to be a land beyond law for the fraudsters and human traffickers. Neither Chinese nor Myanmar authorities should sit back and look unconcerned at the formation of such a paradise for organized crimes.

An ongoing crackdown campaign, as the successful joint raid on drugs in the Mekong River region a decade ago indicates, should root out the whole crime network. And it is suggested that such law-enforcement should become a normalized and regular practice involving the concerted efforts of the public security, finance, telecommunications, internet and other departments of the countries concerned.

Yet as many telecom fraud cases demonstrate, there must be some insiders in local public security, financial, administrative and telecommunication sectors in the region. They benefit steadily from the dirty business and thus provide effective protective umbrellas for it that has been thriving quickly there over the past decade. These bad apples need to be rooted out, or any success in curbing the crimes will only prove to be temporary.