PACMANNEWS.COM
Andi (not his real name) still recalls the moment the overseas job offer arrived—it was a chance he didn’t want to miss. The promise of a better life for his family and the dream of working abroad seemed within reach. He quickly accepted the offer, which came through a friend.
"They offered me a job in Thailand as a customer service agent," Andi told Narasi.
"I didn’t have to pay anything—they covered the tickets."
Two days later, Andi flew to Thailand from Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport, holding a ticket provided by a contact arranged online by his friend. Upon landing at Suvarnabhumi Airport, he was picked up and taken to stay in Bangkok.
“I forgot the name of the hotel, but it was in Bangkok,” he said.
At first, he suspected nothing. But the next day, he was flown again—this time from Bangkok to Mae Sot, a border area between Thailand and Myanmar. There, a Chinese national picked him up and transferred him into another car in a hotel parking lot.
Andi remembered the hotel was named “02” in a district in Mae Sot, located at 200 Mae Pa, Mae Sot District, Tak 63110, Thailand. From there, he was switched into another vehicle and taken to a location near the Thai-Myanmar border, where he waited for nearly half an hour.
Hotel 02, Mae Sot, Thailand @google
He suspects the place was controlled by corrupt Thai immigration officers, as he was asked to hand over his identification. Soon after, Andi was taken across the Moei River. It was at that moment he began to feel uneasy—he had been taken far from Bangkok, where the job was supposedly based.
When he reached Myanmar, he was greeted by armed soldiers at the border and transported in a military-style vehicle alongside Chinese nationals he had met earlier in Mae Sot.
“That’s when I really started feeling suspicious,” he said.
“The job was supposed to be in Bangkok, but I was taken all the way to the border.”
Abdul, a resident of Bekasi, West Java, still remembers when he received a job offer in Thailand during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022. He and about eleven others were gathered at a local restaurant in Bekasi by a husband-and-wife pair before flying out.
Having no reason to be suspicious, Abdul departed for Thailand with the rest of the group. They flew from Soekarno-Hatta Airport in the early morning and entered Thailand through Don Mueang Airport. Upon arrival, they were met by a Singaporean national who welcomed them and took them out for a meal in Bangkok.
There, they were briefed about working for a digital company. The next day, they were transported by minibus to Mae Sot, a Thai district bordering Myanmar. At first, Abdul suspected nothing. But once they crossed the Moei River and were met by soldiers with long-barrelled weapons.
“We were met by armed soldiers and taken away in a vehicle,” Abdul said.
He was brought to a location he would later learn was a cyber scam center. There, he met Robiin—a former member of the Indramayu Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) in West Java—who had also fallen victim to trafficking and forced labor in the same Myanmar border scam operation.
We spoke with Robiin shortly after he was released and had returned to Indonesia. He recounted how he was lured by a job posting on Facebook. At the time, Robiin was working in Singapore. The ad promised high-paying work in Thailand, and he decided to pursue it.
He bought his own plane ticket to Thailand and followed the scammer’s instructions via phone. They led him all the way to the Thai-Myanmar border, where he crossed the Moei River. It wasn’t until he arrived in Myanmar and was picked up by armed guards that he realized he had been deceived.
“I was in Singapore at the time, and the promise of a lucrative salary drew me in,” Robiin said. “I flew to Thailand, thinking I was starting a legitimate job.”
Chapter II: Forced to Scam and Days of Violence
Andi still recalls his first moments inside the scam compound. He was brought before a Malaysian national who served as the recruitment manager. Andi pleaded to be sent home, but his request was in vain.
“I’m a victim too,” the Malaysian recruiter told him. “Just do the job and survive. If you try to escape, it could cost you your life.”
Andi described the compound as heavily guarded and nearly impossible to escape. Armed soldiers watched the main gate, while the perimeter was secured with barbed wire and CCTV. The scam site resembled a walled business complex, complete with surveillance posts and soldiers stationed every few meters.
Within the compound, everything was provided—from supermarkets and hotels to entertainment centers. There was only one entrance, and the area was surrounded by four-story buildings. Some were used to house trafficked victims, others functioned as operational offices for the scam syndicate.
Andi would later learn that the site was known as KK Park, a name that appeared frequently in news reports on scam hubs in Southeast Asia. He only discovered the location’s identity after escaping and sharing his location with family members in Indonesia.
“I managed to send my location to my family,” Andi said.
Satellite image of KK Park © Maxar Technologies
While at KK Park, Andi was forced to work as an online scammer. His job was to create fake Instagram accounts, often pretending to be women entrepreneurs, with the aim of targeting victims in Europe and the United States.
“I had to create multiple accounts and pose as a businesswoman,” he explained. “The target was always Westerners—Europeans and Americans.”
Each worker was given a quota. If they failed to meet it, punishments followed. Escape attempts brought even harsher consequences. Andi recalled beatings and punishments, including physical abuse and, in some cases, electric shocks.
“Some people were tasered,” he said. “I wasn’t, but I was forced to run laps around the field.”
In KK Park, victims had little choice but to comply. Monitored constantly, they worked nearly 24 hours a day in front of computers, trapped in a cycle of manipulation and coercion.
Screenshot of the Instagram account of the woman Andi created to trap victims of online fraud in KK Park/ Narasi
Abdul had a slightly different experience. Initially, he was also tasked with creating fake accounts to lure victims. But later, his role shifted to gathering as many phone numbers as possible to pass on to another team that would then initiate online contact.
Just like Andi, Abdul faced violence if he failed to meet his quota—hundreds of phone numbers per day.
“I was beaten too,” Abdul said. “But it wasn’t as extreme as what you see in some of the videos. The worst were the beatings and the electrocutions.”
The constant pressure, threats, and violence left the victims mentally and physically shattered. They worked exhausting hours without pay, enduring brutal treatment with no way out.
Robiin recounted working over 12 hours a day without receiving any wages. His task was to identify potential victims through TikTok. If he failed to deliver phone numbers, he would face extended hours and physical punishment.
“I never got paid, not even once,” Robiin said.
Day after day, victims like Andi, Abdul, and Robiin endured what they described as the most traumatic time of their lives. They woke up to scam, returned to sleep just before dawn, and repeated the process under constant fear and surveillance.
The only way out? A ransom payment.
Syndicate members would demand tens of thousands of dollars from victims’ families in exchange for their release. Even then, there was no guarantee they would be freed.
“If you want to get out, you have to pay the ransom,” said Robiin.
A report by Chainalysis found that the scam centers in Myanmar—especially KK Park—were largely controlled by Chinese criminal gangs. The site held around 2,000 scam workers, many of whom were victims of trafficking.
The graphic from Chainalysis Reactor revealed wallet addresses linked to KK Park operations.
Interestingly, some crypto wallets used for scam profits also appeared to receive ransom payments from families trying to free their loved ones.
“Some scam operations may be blending fraud revenue with ransom payments from trafficking victims' families,” said Eric Heintz, a global analyst at the International Justice Mission’s Global Fusion Center.
Heintz and his team assist IJM field offices in rescuing victims. They track criminal gangs, monitor recruitment on social media, analyze satellite images of scam compounds, and stay in touch with survivors.
Chapter III: The Business Network of BGF Militias and Chinese Criminal Gangs
Over the past decade, the Karen BGF/KNA region has become a key hub in Southeast Asia’s vast cyber fraud and illegal online gambling network, generating billions of dollars in illicit profit. The leadership of the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) has profited handsomely from these transnational crimes—earning revenue from land control, direct investments in real estate developments through joint ventures, taxation, security, smuggling, human trafficking, and the sale of utilities.
Cyber Scam Monitor, a project created to document and expose cyber fraud operations in Southeast Asia, described how some operations established massive complexes to house dozens of scam companies. In other cases, hotels and condominiums were rented by operators to carry out their fraud.
In most cases, these operations were run by gangsters and organized crime groups, often with connections to local elites—or at least with their silent consent and protection.
Among the scam hubs under BGF control, KK Park stood out. As Andi recalled from his time inside the fraud compound, the walls bore the name Dongmei Group. We tried to trace this company.
The earliest known reference to Dongmei Group came from a 2023 investigative report by The New York Times that exposed the scam compound in KK Park. The report detailed the story of a Chinese man—nicknamed Neo—who was trafficked to the site under false promises of a high-paying translator job, only to be forced into crypto scams for a Chinese crime syndicate.
Neo was imprisoned at Dongmei Park for seven months. The compound was described as a “no-go zone,” where drugs were easily accessible and dormitory-like buildings doubled as brothels. Military-style guards and watchtowers made escape nearly impossible—just as Andi described KK Park.
“I remember the wall had the name Dongmei Group written on it,” said Andi.
One of Dongmei Park’s major investors is Wan Kuok-koi, also known as Broken Tooth (Yin Gouju), a former boss of the Chinese 14K Triad, and a wanted man in Malaysia, according to Justice For Myanmar. Wan is also associated with Saw Chit Thu, a 54-year-old colonel and “senior adviser” to the BGF.
In 2020, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on Wan Kuok-koi, Dongmei Group, and the World Hongmen History and Culture Association, which he chairs.
The U.S. Treasury noted that the World Hongmen group had “expanded throughout Southeast Asia” and served as a front for the 14K Triad’s criminal activities.