Thailand cut electricity supplies on Wednesday to several areas in neighboring Myanmar that are home to sites at the center of a global, billion-dollar online scam industry. As of Wednesday afternoon, at least one of the scam compounds was still operating, according to a local NGO in contact with workers inside one location. However, it’s unclear whether the cuts impacted other scam site operations in the area. Online scam factories – many run by Chinese crime syndicates – have proliferated in Myanmar, which has been riven by a bloody civil war since the military seized power in 2021. Often lured by the promise of well-paid jobs or other enticing opportunities, workers are routinely held against their will and forced to carry out online fraud schemes in heavily guarded compounds, where former detainees say beatings and torture are common. On Wednesday, Thailand’s Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul toured a control station at…
