China vows to reunite scam victims with families, crack down on cross-border criminal gangs

Beijing: China will make every effort to rescue Chinese nationals who fell foul of scam operations luring them to countries including Myanmar, the public security ministry said late on Wednesday.

Overseas fraud syndicates have duped Chinese citizens with promises of high-paying jobs, food, accommodation and airfares, and trapped them in telecoms fraud dens in towns such as Myawaddy, on Myanmar's border with Thailand, the ministry said in a report by state media CCTV.

The CCTV report follows a high-profile case involving a Chinese actor who was found after going missing earlier this month in northern Thailand's Tak province. Thai police said they believed he was a victim of human trafficking.

China would step up efforts with other countries' law enforcement agencies to coordinate the rescue of citizens trapped overseas and dismantle the telecoms fraud dens, the article said.

It made reference to a 2023 campaign with Myanmar authorities to bring down The Kokang 'Four Families,' an ethnically Chinese mafia group operating along Myanmar border with China's southern Yunnan province.

For nearby Southeast Asian countries, Chinese visitors are a lucrative business, having spent billions of dollars annually across the region prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But concerns about trafficking and stories circulating on Chinese social media of travellers being held up by gangs could deter them from choosing to fork out on holidaying there.

Thai policymakers agreed to "speed up the resolution of the problems impacting Thailand's image as a safe tourism destination" during a cabinet meeting on Monday, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

Thailand last year helped facilitate the transfer of some 900 Chinese nationals who had been trapped in scam centres in Myawaddy, while in 2023, Myanmar handed over 31,000 telecom fraud suspects to China.

Chinese state media said at the time that more than 1,000 scam centres had been set up in Myanmar, engaging over 100,000 people in telecom fraud daily.

China's Premier Li Qiang, in a meeting with the Myanmar junta leader in November, called for joint efforts to combat cross-border crimes, including online gambling and telecom fraud.

The Myanmar Embassy in China did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"The general public must be vigilant, strengthen their own safety precautions, and avoid blindly trusting offers of high-paying jobs overseas to avoid falling into scams and telecom fraud traps," China's Ministry of Public Security said.