MAE SOT – India is set to bring home the first group of its citizens who fled to Thailand from Myanmar last month. These individuals had been working at a notorious cybercrime hub in Myanmar before the recent upheaval.

The facility, known as KK Park, located on the outskirts of Myawaddy, was reportedly at the center of a significant online scam operation. In mid-October, Myanmar’s army launched a raid aimed at curbing these illegal activities, including cross-border cyber scams and unlawful gambling.

An Indian Air Force transport aircraft departed from Thailand to India with the first batch of returnees. A second flight is scheduled to follow later, carrying approximately 270 of the 465 Indian nationals slated for repatriation. The rest are expected to return to India by next Monday, according to Maj. Gen. Maitree Chupreecha, who oversees the Naresuan Task Force of the Thai army’s northern sector.

Earlier this year, in March, India successfully repatriated 549 of its citizens after a similar crackdown on cybercrime operations along the Myanmar-Thai border.

The current group being repatriated is part of a larger exodus of over 1,500 individuals from 28 countries who escaped the raid in Myawaddy. In the Thai border town of Mae Sot, authorities have established temporary facilities to accommodate and process these individuals, including citizens from China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Kenya, among others.

In April, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that hundreds of industrial-scale scam centers generate just under $40 billion in annual profits.

Southeast Asia is the world epicenter for online scams, and hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been lured to work in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, where many were forced to perpetrate global scams involving false romances, fraudulent investments, and illegal gambling.

Human trafficking is another major criminal aspect of such operations as many of the workers were recruited under false pretenses offering legitimate jobs, only to find themselves trapped in virtual slavery.

State media in military-run Myanmar said the raid on KK Park was part of operations starting in early September to suppress cross-border online scams and illegal gambling. Since the raid, witnesses and the Thai army have said that that parts of KK Park were demolished by explosions.

However, independent Myanmar media, including The Irrawaddy, an online news service, have reported that organized criminal scams in Myanmar continue to operate in the Myawaddy area.

The cybercrime problem received major attention last month when the United States and Britain enacted sanctions against organizers of a major Cambodian cyberscam gang, and its alleged ringleader was indicted by a U.S. federal court in New York.

In South Korea, the case of a young man, killed after apparently being lured to work at a cyberscam operation in Cambodia, caused an uproar.