They are among some 7,000 people from more than two dozen countries released from scam compounds who are now enduring a gruelling wait to be sent home through Thailand.
Conditions in the overcrowded temporary camp visited by AFP in the town of Myawaddy, near the Thai border, were squalid and those held there were begging to leave.
"It's really no good," one 18-year-old Malaysian man told AFP, saying the toilets and showers were so dirty they were unusable.
"I hope I can contact my parents quickly so I can go."
A Chinese detainee who gave his family name as Wang said he was "very happy" at the prospect of getting out.
"I can finally escape this hell... China is the safest," he said.
- 'Help me, help me, help me' -
Scam centres have sprung up in Myanmar's lawless border areas in recent years as part of a criminal industry worth billions of dollars a year.
Thousands of foreign workers staff the centres, trawling social media for victims to fleece, often through romance or investment cons.
Many workers say they were trafficked or tricked into taking the work and suffer beatings and abuse, though the government in China -- where most come from -- regards them as criminal suspects.
Under heavy pressure from Beijing, Myanmar's junta and allied militias have taken action to curb the centres.
The "crackdown" has so far involved armed uniformed men coming to the sites and asking for volunteers to leave and go home, several freed workers told AFP in Myawaddy.
But processing the workers for repatriation has been slow, leaving them trapped in limbo, smoking and playing cards to pass the time in the detention facility, which has a roof but no walls to keep the elements and insects out.
Many had their passports confiscated by scam centre bosses, and those AFP spoke to said their mobile phones were taken away.
An Indian man who said he was tricked into working in the scam centres after applying for a data entry job in Thailand, told AFP he had contacted his embassy in Bangkok several times.
He begged them "help me, help me, help me. But no one helps me," he said.
"The feeling is not good because we are in trouble right now."
Myanmar's raging civil war has complicated efforts to tackle the scam compounds, as most are in areas outside the ruling junta's control.
The Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), an independent militia allied to the junta, controls two of the most notorious scam towns, Myawaddy and Shwe Kokko.
The BGF released thousands from illegal scam compounds last week and wants to swiftly deport them to neighbouring Thailand for repatriation, saying it is struggling to cope with looking after so many people.
"People have to stay in cramped conditions," said its spokesman Naing Maung Zaw.
"We have to cook three meals to feed thousands of people and arrange their healthcare," he said, adding he was worried about a possible outbreak of contagious diseases.
- Struggling to cope -
The United Nations estimates that as many as 120,000 people -- many of them Chinese men -- may be working in Myanmar scam centres against their will.
Gangs that run the compounds lure people with promises of high-paying jobs, then force them to defraud people from around the world or face severe punishment and abuse.
The sites on the Thai-Myanmar border vary in how they treat their staff, analysts say, and Thai officials have claimed that a majority of workers go there intentionally.
Victims released from smaller compounds claim that as a more sophisticated operation, Shwe Kokko -- one of the area's biggest scam hubs -- draws more people who willingly go there to commit fraud.
But "not everyone living in Shwe Kokko is a criminal," Naing Maung Zaw said.
A Chinese man surnamed Shen denied allegations that the scam centre workers had travelled to Myanmar intentionally, saying he had been tricked and forced.
"If I did it voluntarily, I would take all legal responsibilities," he said.
But so far China has treated all returning detainees -- 600 were sent back last week -- as suspects, with state TV showing them marched off the plane in handcuffs by police on their return home.
Thailand, Myanmar and China are expected to hold three-way talks in the coming weeks to arrange logistics for further repatriations, with Thailand saying it is working with over a dozen foreign embassies.
One of 14 detained Pakistani men who hoped to return before Ramadan said he felt abandoned by authorities after hearing of other repatriations.
"We know we're safe now. But it's been eight days. So why can't we go to Thailand now?" he told AFP.
Stretched for resources to look after the hundreds of foreigners in their charge, Naing Maung Zaw pleaded to foreign embassies to "come and take your nationals ... They want to go home."
Southeast Asia's latest scam centre crackdown
Bangkok (AFP) Feb 27, 2025 -
China, Thailand and Myanmar last week ramped up efforts to curb cyberscam compounds on the Thai-Myanmar border, working to free the foreign workers inside.
AFP takes a look at why the crackdown is happening now and the broader implications for relations between the three countries.
-- Why a crackdown now? --
Cyberscam centres -- hubs for online fraud including investment and romance scams -- have afflicted Southeast Asia for several years, evolving from casinos in the Golden Triangle area on the Thai-Myanmar-Laos border.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the casinos shifted their operations online, becoming increasingly hi-tech and lucrative -- an industry analysts say is now worth billions of dollars.
After a major crackdown in 2022 on cyberscam centres in Cambodia's port city of Sihanoukville, swathes more sprouted on the Myanmar-China border until a rebel offensive cleared them out in late 2023.
In the lawless border towns and hinterlands of Myanmar -- which has been in the throes of a civil war since a 2021 coup -- the scam centres have been able to operate largely unmolested.
Their criminal bosses lure people with promises of high-paying jobs, but then force them to defraud people from around the world or face severe punishment and abuse.
The United Nations estimates that as many as 120,000 people -- many of them Chinese men -- may be working in Myanmar scam centres.
Fears were reignited in January when small-time Chinese actor Wang Xing was allegedly trafficked into a scam centre on the Thai-Myanmar border, prompting Chinese netizens to warn against travel to "dangerous" Thailand.
In response, Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra visited Beijing in early February and cut cross-border electricity supplies to five Myanmar regions.
The visit by a Chinese public security minister to the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border area two weeks later culminated in the repatriation via Thailand of around 600 Chinese nationals thought to be working in scam compounds.
-- What's at stake for the three countries? --
China has said it is "firmly determined to fight cross-border online gambling and telecom fraud" and has promised "thunder-style cooperation" with Thailand and Myanmar to get rid of them.
Beijing faces pressure to take action from victims' families, said Jason Tower of the United States Institute for Peace, adding "there have been massive losses across China".
The transnational criminal networks behind the scam industry have become so powerful that the Chinese state is also beginning to see them as a threat, he told AFP.
Cooperating to fight the gangs is a way to increase overseas influence, Tower added, warning that China building a "web of police influence that extends across the region" could lead to extraditions of human rights defenders and Uyghurs.
The centres have been a thorn in the side of the Myanmar junta's relations with Beijing -- a major ally and arms supplier -- which has repeatedly told the generals to crack down in recent years.
But through unwillingness or inability -- many of the centres lie in areas outside junta control -- the military was unable to satisfy Beijing.
"China has always had an ambivalent relationship with the junta," Paul Greening, an ex-UN senior staffer based in Mae Sot, told AFP.
"By authoritarian inclination they support military style governments but only as far as it furthers their economic interests."
The Myanmar junta has "no interest in cracking down" on the lucrative scam centres, Tower said, but China -- facing growing domestic pressure and economic woes -- has been urging it to clear them out.
As a result, many analysts believe China gave tacit approval to a rebel offensive in October 2023 that seized territory from the junta in northeastern Myanmar, in return for the rebels eliminating scam compounds in the territory they seized.
While less directly implicated, Thailand -- as a transit hub for many trafficked victims from countries all over the world -- hopes to avoid a reputational stain in the eyes of China, its largest source of tourists.
-- Will this crackdown work? --
The three countries last week agreed to carve out a plan for further repatriations, as Myanmar border militias look after thousands of newly released workers.
But this is not the first crackdown on illicit cyberscam compounds in the region and may not be the last.
"The scam centres will relocate as they have in the past and may not even have to do that," said Greening, adding that a few "fairly inconsequential" scam bosses will be offered up as "sacrifice" while the real bosses will get away.
In an attempt to choke the scam operations, Thailand has cut off internet, electricity and fuel supplies to towns on the Myanmar side of the border believed to house them.
Tower said that while this crackdown was "more significant and intense" than those in 2022 and 2023, the scam centres would either move or find new sources of internet connection and fuel.
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