By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-18 00:49:59 | Updated at 2025-03-18 05:55:26
5 hours ago
More than 500 Indonesians freed from online scam centres in Myanmar will be repatriated via Thailand in the coming days, a senior Indonesian official said on Tuesday.
Cyberscam operations, which have thrived in Myanmar’s lawless border areas for several years, lure foreign workers with promises of high-paying jobs but hold them hostage and force them to commit online fraud.
Around 7,000 workers from at least two dozen countries have been freed in recent weeks, the majority of them Chinese, but many have been languishing in squalid temporary holding camps on the border between Myanmar and Thailand.
Four hundred Indonesian nationals will return home on Tuesday and “around 161” are to come back on Wednesday, said Judha Nugraha, the director of citizen protection at Indonesia’s foreign ministry.
They would come back on three flights from Bangkok after crossing into Thailand from Myanmar, he said.
