TAK - The first group of 50 Chinese people returned from Myanmar-based scam centres flew home from Mae Sot on Thursday morning, with another 150 compatriots scheduled to return to China by the end of the day.
The 50 Chinese arrived in the Thai border district from Myawaddy on two buses escorted by police vehicles. Soldiers with the Ratchamanu task force received the group from the Karen Border Guard Force on the Second Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge over the Moei River at about 9am.
Each Chinese national was then brought by one soldier into the Mae Sot Border Checkpoint 2, and all were subsequently handed over to Chinese authorities for the first repatriation flight sponsored by the Chinese government from Mae Sot airport.
Reporters were not allowed in the border checkpoint. The flight took off at 11.30am, an AFP journalist reported. Four Chinese repatriation flights, each carrying 50 people plus officials, were scheduled for Thursday.
“All 50 have boarded the plane that the Chinese government arranged,” regional police official Raveepat Amornmuneepong told Reuters, adding that Chinese authorities would separate victims trafficked to scam compounds from the criminals in the group.
“There are four flights today.”
The Chinese government has chartered China Southern Airlines planes to repatriate 600 of its nationals from Mae Sot on 16 flights from Thursday to Saturday. The repatriation of foreigners of other nationalities is expected to follow.
The Chinese nationals are among thousands of people expected to be brought out of the Myawaddy-based scam centres after serious pressure from the Chinese government and Thailand’s suspension of power, oil and internet services to the areas early this month.
The call-centre compounds run by criminal gangs, most of them Chinese, are staffed by foreigners, many of whom say they were trafficked and forced to work running internet scams swindling people around the world.
The Karen Border Guard Force, a militia allied with the Myanmar junta, has said it is preparing to deport as many as 10,000 people linked to the compounds in areas it controls on the border with Thailand.
Chinese security personnel are expected to accompany the returnees on the planes, and it is not clear what fate awaits them back in China. It is not known how many were willing participants or perpetrators of the scams and how many were victims of trafficking.
Pol Maj Gen Phathana Nuchanart, deputy commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, said that immigration police had collected biometric data of the Chinese offenders and blacklisted them. (Story continues below)
Reporters surround Liu Zhongyi, assistant minister of public security for China, as he oversees the repatriation of Chinese nationals who were taken from scam centres in Myawaddy, at Mae Sot airport in Tak province on Thursday. (Photo: Reuters)
Thai soldiers escort Chinese nationals returned from scam centres in Myanmar as they get off a bus on the Thailand-Myanmar Friendship Bridge 2 before being repatriated to China by plane, in Mae Sot district of Tak province on Thursday. (Photo: Reuters)
Thursday's operation followed several visits to Thailand by Liu Zhongyi, China’s assistant minister for public security, to co-ordinate scam centre suppression with Thai and Myanmar authorities and to oversee the repatriation of Chinese citizens.
“Officials are working with the relevant agencies to collect personal information of these individuals for prompt repatriation,” the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Thursday.
Some scam centre survivors among a group of 260 who returned last week from Myawaddy and are now sheltering in a military camp said cuts and bruises on their bodies were a result of beatings and electric shock inflicted on them.
A bus carrying 50 Chinese nationals arrives at the Mae Sot border checkpoint in Tak province on Thursday morning. Four repatriation flights arranged by the Chinese government for 200 people took off from Mae Sot airport during the day. (Photo: Assawin Pinitwong)
