Myanmar’s military-backed parliament approved a law on Tuesday authorising capital punishment for those who detain or violently coerce victims into working in online scam centres.
Internet fraud factories have flourished in war-torn Myanmar, part of Southeast Asia’s thriving scam economy, targeting web users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment cons.
The multibillion-dollar black market attracts many willing employees, but repatriated foreigners have also reported being trafficked to sites in Myanmar and tortured by scam centre operators.
Under pressure from other nations, including the United States and China, the Myanmar government of putschist-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing has pledged to crack down on the illicit industry.
But monitors say law enforcement raids and arrests have resulted in scam outfits relocating in the region rather than ceasing operations.
Myanmar lawmakers passed the “Anti-Online Scam Bill” at a joint session of parliament in the capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday, parliament speaker Aung Lin Dwe said during a live television broadcast.
Lower house MP Aye Chan told AFP the death sentence was included in the final version of the law.
“There were not many significant changes to the proposed draft bill… the important parts of the bill remained the same,” Aye Chan said.
A draft text published in May included sentences of 10 years to life in prison, as well as capital punishment, for “violence, torture, unlawful arrest and detention, or cruel treatment against another person for the purpose of forcing them to commit online scams”.
For scam offences causing death, it said, “the death penalty shall be imposed”.
The draft bill also featured a maximum sentence of life in prison for those who “run an online scam centre” or convicted of cryptocurrency scams.
Scammers executed
The anti-scam law is the first legislation passed by Myanmar’s new government, headed by former junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.
He led a 2021 military coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggered an ongoing civil war.
In April, Min Aung Hlaing assumed the role of civilian president after heavily restricted elections that did not include the detained Nobel laureate, Suu Kyi, or her party.
Analysts describe the military-backed parliament as a rubber-stamp legislature, with pro-military lawmakers sweeping the vote which was widely criticised by Western nations and democracy watchdogs as a sham meant to launder the junta’s image.
As one of his first official acts since becoming civilian leader, Min Aung Hlaing commuted all death sentences in a blanket order in April — a turnaround after his junta had resumed executions following the coup.
The return to executions after decades targeted anti-coup dissidents, rights groups said.
By 2022, more than 130 people had been sentenced to death, according to the United Nations.
This year China — which reported more than $5 billion in scam losses in the past two years — has executed at least 15 people convicted of fraud offences linked to Myanmar scam compounds.
‘Many challenges’
Myanmar’s civil war has killed more than 100,000 people and seeded instability across the country, creating fertile ground for scammers to set up shop inside fortified compounds, according to monitors.
Chinese-origin syndicates “constitute the major organisational force” behind the region’s cyberscam economy, running industrial-scale scam compounds in border areas and special economic zones in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, a report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said this month.
In Myanmar’s conflict zones, non-state armed groups are also involved in the criminal ecosystem, it added.
Myanmar’s government has vowed to combat internet fraud alongside neighbouring nations. But law enforcement actions in the region have “displaced and dispersed” scam networks rather than dismantled them, the UNODC said.
Crackdowns on established scam hubs, including KK Park and Shwe Kokko in Myanmar near the Thai border, have pushed operators to facilities in Cambodia, it noted.
Upper house MP Naw Yuzana Wah told AFP that international pressure was spurring Myanmar officials to tackle the scam scourge.
“As many armed groups and organisations are involved” in the industry, “we have many challenges to address”, she said.
