Myanmar Spring Chronicle – View from November 28
(MoeMaKa) November 29, 2025
The Growing Difficulty of Tackling the “Tiger Scam” Problem
The crisis surrounding the so-called “tiger compounds” — large-scale online fraud syndicates — has many root causes and involves many actors. This makes the problem increasingly complex and difficult to resolve.
These scam gangs operate in areas with weak rule of law or in territories controlled by armed groups. They pay these armed groups for protection while running vast illegal fraud operations. Inside the compounds, trafficked workers are tortured, abused, or even sold to other scam operations like enslaved labor. Some allegations claim organ harvesting, although there is currently little concrete evidence of medical facilities, equipment or experts needed for such crimes.
To carry out the core fraud operations — and the related forms of violence and human trafficking — the scam syndicates rely heavily on the protection of armed groups. Those groups are fully aware that the gangs are conducting massive criminal scams; they simply shield them under the façade of “casino operations.”
In Myanmar’s borderlands — the ethnic armed group territories along the China–Myanmar border, and the Karen and Mon regions along the Thai–Myanmar border — conditions have been ideal for these scam networks to flourish. Over just a few years, they expanded rapidly.
After northern Shan’s scam compounds were crushed during Operation 1027 in late 2023, the scam syndicates largely disappeared from that region. They then shifted and regrouped at the Thai–Myanmar border, becoming the main hub. Although civil war has continued in Myanmar, many scam compounds in these border areas remained untouched by the fighting and were allowed to operate. Despite intense conflict in Karen State since 2021, places like Shwe Kokko, Kyauk Khat, KK Park, and Three Pagodas Pass allowed scam operations to continue growing.
These areas are not controlled by one armed group alone — several different armed actors share authority and collectively prevent any interference in the scam zones. It is hard to deny that the money flowing from these scam operations has, to some extent, funded the ongoing domestic war.
Now, however, the situation has reached a point where everyone involved is being forced to confront the scam problem — armed groups, the military junta, and even Thai police and immigration officials. There is no longer any way to ignore it.
The Myanmar junta is also implicated: until early last year, powerful Border Guard Force (BGF) leaders such as Saw Chit Thu were heavily involved. Because those BGF units were under the junta’s formal command structure, the junta will eventually be held responsible for those links.
At present, there is no real coordinated strategy among the Myanmar military, Thai authorities, and the armed groups operating in the border areas to dismantle the scam networks. There is no serious joint operational response. Instead of cooperation, each side is blaming the others, creating a “blame game” dynamic.
In recent weeks, the junta has begun its own crackdown by entering KK Park, a site previously leased to the KNU, and launching operations in Myawaddy to target the scam networks. They have destroyed buildings, smashed computers and phones seized from the compounds, and pushed scam workers toward the Myanmar and Thai sides of the border.
Yesterday, junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told the media that KNU and KKO/DKBA armed groups were involved in the scam operations — highlighting their role. The junta is clearly taking advantage of the world’s attention on scam suppression to politically attack the KNU, using KK Park’s land lease as an entry point. Notably, the junta has deliberately avoided mentioning the BGF, which was actually the earliest and most deeply involved armed group running and benefiting from these scam operations.
There is still no clear evidence of how profits from the scam operations were shared with junta leaders — which is why the military can still deny its direct involvement. But the political benefits the junta gained from allowing the compounds to operate are undeniable.
For its part, the KNU, which has long maintained a non-conflict stance toward other Karen armed groups, also avoided criticizing the scam operations in the border areas. Only recently — after the KNU stormed a DKBA-protected scam site in Min Let Pan — has KNU become directly involved in enforcement operations.
Now the challenge becomes even bigger:
How will the thousands of scam victims fleeing these compounds be processed, screened, repatriated, sheltered, or assisted?
This will require manpower, money, legal authorization, and coordination — all of which are in short supply.
In recent days, KNU has appealed to the Thai government and the international community to help resolve large-scale humanitarian challenges emerging from the Min Let Pan raids. How Thailand and foreign embassies respond — and how KNU handles the next phase of dismantling the scam networks — will be crucial to watch.