Elon Musk’s SpaceX company announced Wednesday that it has disabled more than 2,500 Starlink devices used by cyber fraud syndicates operating in lawless areas of Myanmar.
Despite a major crackdown by local authorities this year on cyber fraud centers along the Myanmar-Thailand border, fraud networks continue to proliferate in the civil war-torn country.
SpaceX said it is working to identify violations in all markets where Starlink operates.
“In the unlikely event that we identify a violation, we will take appropriate action, including working with law enforcement agencies around the world,” Lauren Dreyer, SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink business operations, said in a post on X.
“For example, in Myanmar, SpaceX proactively identified and disabled more than 2,500 Starlink kits near suspected ‘fraud centers.’
Dryer did not say when the consoles were disabled, but the announcement comes after Myanmar’s military government announced this week that it had discovered 30 sets of Starlink “receivers and accessories” during a raid on one of its similar fraudulent facilities.
According to a recent report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, there are about 30 vast, purpose-built facilities along the Myanmar-Thailand border dedicated to scamming victims, including Americans, out of billions of dollars every year.
Workers at the fraud centers, often lured with promises of well-paid jobs or trafficked, are routinely held against their will and forced to carry out online fraud schemes in high-security facilities, where former detainees have previously told CNN that assaults and torture were common.
For more than a year, the United States has expressed concern that criminal networks in Myanmar are using Starlink to access the internet and commit fraud.
According to Starlink’s website, it has more than 6 million users worldwide. It uses a network of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit to provide high-speed internet service and reach remote communities.
An investigation by Agence France-Presse this month found that Starlink receivers had been installed on the rooftops of fraudulent facilities on a “large scale”.
According to an AFP investigation, the US Congress’ Joint Economic Committee has launched an investigation into Starlink’s alleged involvement in the center.
The move by SpaceX comes as the global fraud industry is growing at an unprecedented rate, with criminal groups deploying artificial intelligence and using online cryptocurrency markets to move large amounts of stolen funds undetected, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Southeast Asia has become a hotspot for romance and investment scams known as “pig butchering,” after the act of fattening prey before slaughter. And Myanmar has become an attractive destination for cybercrime networks, protected by corruption and a military regime.
Crystaline, who is from the Philippines, said she was working at KK Park, a notorious scam facility near the border town of Myawaddy in southeastern Myanmar, when the internet went out around noon on Wednesday.
“In the morning, our Chinese boss came to our office and asked us to go back to our rooms,” she told CNN, asking that only her first name be used for security reasons.
“But soon after, he came again and told us to leave the place,” added Crystaline, who has been working there since July.
She told CNN on Friday that she and about 200 other Filipinos, as well as others from India, Pakistan and several African countries, were waiting near the border with Thailand and attempting to cross.
“Some of us are staying in abandoned houses and buildings, and others are simply staying on the streets trying to cross the border. Here we have no food and no money at all.”
Since seizing power in a 2021 coup, the military junta, which does not rule the entire country, has been fighting a civil war against anti-junta forces and a motley collection of regional ethnic groups.
In February, Thailand cut off power supply to several areas in Myanmar where fraudulent sites are located in an effort to disrupt their activities.
Shortly thereafter, a major operation by Thai authorities resulted in the release of approximately 7,000 workers and victims from fraud centers along the border and repatriation.
Myanmar’s military government announced that it had arrested 9,551 foreigners from fraudulent facilities between January 30 and October 19, and repatriated most of them.
But experts warned that this was only a small proportion of the people working trapped in the centres.
The military announced on Monday that it had found more than 2,000 workers in a raid on KK Park.
Footage shot for CNN from inside KK Park in April shows paved roads lined with trees and manicured lawns, giving the impression of a legitimate business district, complete with signage advertising hotels and gambling establishments.
However, officials working in the field of combating human trafficking told CNN that the raid on KK Park has not stopped operations.
Although the impact of Starlink’s suspension is “non-zero,” there are still “many victims trapped” in other buildings on the site, who were “confirmed last night that they are still being forced to commit fraud,” officials said.
Cross-border crime expert Jason Tower said the military raid on KK Park was “more propaganda than enforcement” and “business as usual” for the dozens of fraudulent establishments still operating along the Moei River, which separates Myanmar and Thailand.
“Amid growing international attention and outrage over fraud in Southeast Asia, the Myanmar military is attempting to evade responsibility for turning the Myanmar-Thailand border region into a crime hub,” said Tower, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations will hold a summit in Malaysia later this week, and the plight of fraud centers is likely to be at the top of the agenda. “The military is also taking a stand that it will continue to take action on this issue,” Tower said.
Tower added that with recent large-scale law enforcement operations by the US and UK targeting criminal fraud networks in Cambodia, “China is likely to once again increase pressure on Myanmar’s military junta to take further action.”
“Myanmar’s military is also likely seeking to establish more direct control over some fraud centers, as it recognizes how much illicit revenue is generated by this highly lucrative form of criminal activity,” he said.
CNN has reached out to the junta for comment.
