Just after sunset on October 24, 2025, the tranquil rhythm of Mae Kut Sung Mai village along Thailand’s northwestern border was shattered by a series of explosions. Across the narrow Moei River, Myanmar’s military had launched a dramatic offensive against KK Park, a sprawling scam compound notorious for harboring one of the world’s largest networks of transnational fraud. The operation, which included the bombing and demolition of nearly 150 buildings, was Myanmar’s most publicized crackdown yet on the thriving scam industry that has taken root along its borderlands.
According to the Associated Press and AFP, KK Park had become infamous for its scale and secrecy. The compound was a self-contained world: dormitories, a four-story hospital, a two-story karaoke complex, gyms, spas, restaurants, and even parks and sports facilities. These amenities, however, masked a darker reality. The complex housed thousands of workers—some lured by false job offers, others trafficked against their will—tasked with perpetrating online scams that raked in tens of billions of dollars each year from unsuspecting victims around the globe.
The October raid was no small affair. Myanmar’s military claimed to have discovered more than 2,000 scammers at KK Park, with over 1,500 foreign workers—mainly from India, China, and the Philippines—fleeing across the river into Thailand. Eyewitnesses captured harrowing scenes of people clinging to makeshift flotation devices, desperate to escape. Tragically, there were reports that some did not survive the perilous crossing.
In the weeks that followed, the Myanmar junta announced it had demolished 101 buildings at KK Park, with another 47 structures slated for destruction. The government said these efforts were part of a broader campaign to eliminate scam centers and arrest both local and foreign ringleaders. As of November 10, 2025, authorities reported having detained 10,762 foreigners who had entered Myanmar illegally, mostly through Thailand; 9,403 of these individuals have already been repatriated, and another 1,359 await transfer. India alone had repatriated 270 of its citizens from KK Park and was preparing to fly home nearly 200 more.
But despite the spectacle, skepticism abounds. International experts and watchdogs have questioned the sincerity and effectiveness of Myanmar’s crackdown. Jason Tower, a senior analyst with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, told ABC News, “I think some very, very misinformed people have started saying, ‘Look, the Myanmar military is dismantling scam compounds.’ The reality is that this is just another iteration of political theatre. And we’ve seen constant political theatre coming out of Myanmar with respect to scam centres over the past two years.”
Tower, who has tracked the growth of scam centers across Southeast Asia since 2018, estimated that KK Park alone employed as many as 25,000 scammers before its destruction. The removal of 10,000 workers from scam centers nationwide, he argued, would barely dent operations. The United Nations, in a 2023 report, cited credible sources estimating that at least 120,000 people in Myanmar may be trapped working in scam operations. The report detailed how traffickers lure victims from across Southeast Asia and beyond with false job advertisements, only to force them into online fraud once inside compounds like KK Park.
Myanmar’s military, for its part, has denied any involvement with organized crime syndicates, instead blaming ethnic armed groups such as the Karen National Union. However, Tower’s research suggests otherwise: “Only armed groups that have ceasefire agreements with the Myanmar military—or who are integrated into the Myanmar military’s command structure—are operating large-scale scam facilities.”
So why did the military move so forcefully against KK Park? Tower offered a blunt assessment: “What we’ve heard is the Myanmar military knows just how lucrative these things are, and they know that the kingpins in Cambodia had $15 billion in cryptocurrency stashed away somewhere. So…it’s trying to negotiate a bigger share of the proceeds. And in the case of KK Park, they [the scam centre bosses] weren’t prepared to hand over more of the proceeds to the Myanmar military. So the Myanmar military moved in.” In essence, the crackdown may be as much about internal power struggles and profit as it is about law enforcement.
Meanwhile, the scam industry shows little sign of slowing. Along Myanmar’s 2,400-kilometer border with Thailand, more than 40 compounds remain active. When ABC reporters drove along the Thai side of the divide in October, they observed expansive construction at several sites. “If you go down into Three Pagodas Pass [on the border between Thailand and Myanmar], you’ve got a massive scam compound in the range of 25 to 30 buildings,” Tower said. “People are estimating that there’s 4,000 to 5,000 people already in there. There’s also reports of scam centres moving further inland into Myanmar. No one really sees it, so there’s less attention to it.”
The international dimension of the crisis is growing. China, a key backer of Myanmar’s military, has become increasingly frustrated as its citizens are targeted and sometimes trafficked into the scam centers. In February 2025, a pressure campaign led by Beijing resulted in the repatriation of 7,000 scam workers. Thailand, too, has taken action, enacting a cross-border internet blockade in an attempt to throttle the fraud factories. In response, scam centers installed Starlink satellite internet receivers en masse to bypass the Thai web cut-off. Following an AFP investigation, SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, disabled more than 2,500 satellite terminals in the area.
Despite these efforts, the scam industry’s resilience is rooted in Myanmar’s broader turmoil. Since the military coup of 2021, the country has been consumed by civil war. The military relies on revenue from scam operations to fund its campaign and maintain the loyalty of powerful militias. Experts warn that cracking down too hard could erode the profits that enrich these key allies, making the junta’s balancing act all the more precarious.
For the thousands of victims—both those scammed and those forced to work in the compounds—the cycle of exploitation continues. Myanmar’s government insists it is cooperating with neighboring countries and international organizations to dismantle the scam networks and bring perpetrators to justice. But for now, the demolition of KK Park, with its intermittent explosions and high-profile raids, may be more about optics and internal maneuvering than a genuine effort to end a multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise.
As the dust settles at KK Park and repatriated workers return home, the world’s attention shifts to the next chapter in Myanmar’s borderlands. The scam industry, battered but not broken, remains a stark symbol of the country’s ongoing crisis—one that will not be solved by demolition alone.
