Thailand is looking into the idea of building a wall on part of its border with Cambodia to prevent illegal crossings as part of its ongoing offensive against illegal online scam operations along its borders.
Speaking to the press yesterday, government spokesperson Jirayu Huangsab said that Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra had “directed the cabinet and relevant agencies to further study the idea of erecting a wall between Thailand and Cambodia to prevent illegal crossings and travels of call-center gangsters as well as the drugs and contraband trades,” Radio Free Asia reported.
Over the past six weeks, Thailand has led a crackdown on the dozens of scamming centers that have sprung up along its borders with Myanmar, cutting supplies of power, internet, and fuel to areas of Myanmar known to harbor scam operations. Cyber-scam operations, run mostly by Chinese organized crime syndicates, have proliferated across the Mekong region since the COVID-19 pandemic, defrauding thousands of victims around the world while trafficking tens of thousands of people to work in the centers, drawing them in with promises of legitimate employment.
The Thai crackdown has taken place under considerable pressure from China, following the abduction in early January of a well-known Chinese actor, who was later freed from a scam center in Myawaddy, just over Thailand’s border in eastern Myanmar.
Thailand has now turned its attention to Poipet, a Wild West Cambodian town on the border with Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province. Thai authorities have already suspended cellphone towers along the border, which they fear were being used by scammers. Then, last week, Thai and Cambodian police rescued 215 people after a joint raid on a suspected online scamming operation in Poipet. The group included 119 Thais, who were deported on Saturday.
Jirayu told the media yesterday that the Thai prime minister had proposed the wall idea following reports that scammers were fleeing the crackdowns in Myanmar for Poipet, and that Thailand would discuss the idea with the Cambodian government.
“The Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry shall coordinate with other relevant agencies and talk with Cambodia on how to make it, if we would, and what the result will be – will it solve problems?” he said. He did not specify how long the proposed border wall would be, but according to a Reuters report, the Thai Ministry of Defense has previously proposed constructing a wall along a 55 kilometer “natural crossing” between Sa Kaeo and Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey province, “which at present is only protected by razor wire.”
The Thai announcement of a possible border wall follows the visit of Liu Zhongyi, China’s newly appointed anti-scam point-man, to Poipet over the weekend. Liu, who is also a deputy minister of public security, led a delegation to the Cambodian side of the Poipet International Gate and held talks with officials in Banteay Meanchey province. As the Khmer Times reported, the discussions, “primarily focused on cross-border security issues, particularly the fight against online fraud and illegal border crossings.” It added that “both sides reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening cooperation to curb transnational crimes.”
Prime Minister Paetongtarn also visited Poipet on Friday, when she “highlighted the significance of tackling call center gangs.”
As always, it remains unclear how successful this crackdown will be in eradicating the scamming operations inside Cambodia. In particular, questions remain as to whether the country’s government, prominent members and associates of which have well-documented links to scamming syndicates, are serious about cooperating to eliminate these operations. As Jacob Sims wrote in these pages last week, the possibility of Cambodian state collusion in cyber-fraud operations poses a much greater challenge than the involvement of Myanmar-based militia groups.
While armed groups in Myanmar “can duck and weave,” he wrote, “the contingent relationships of a militia group will always be easier to counter and apply pressure to than those of an established sovereign state.”