China, Myanmar, Thailand endeavor to eradicate telecom fraud networks

BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- China, Myanmar and Thailand agreed to intensify cooperation to dismantle all telecom scam compounds and arrest all suspects in Myawaddy and other telecom fraud hubs, China's Ministry of Public Security announced Sunday.

The decision came during a recent ministerial meeting on a joint crackdown against telecom fraud attended by law enforcement agencies of the three countries.

Thanks to their joint efforts, over 5,400 Chinese nationals suspected of fraud in Myawaddy have been repatriated in 2025, marking significant progress in the tripartite crackdown campaign.

This is not the first time China has collaborated with Southeast Asian countries to combat telecom fraud.

In November 2024, the Chinese ministry announced that all large-scale telecom fraud centers located near the China-Myanmar border in northern Myanmar had been wiped out.

By the end of 2024, over 53,000 Chinese nationals suspected of fraud had been arrested through cooperative efforts from Chinese and Myanmar police since the Chinese ministry launched a crackdown on telecom fraud in northern Myanmar in 2023.

During China's cooperation with Lao police in 2024, a total of 268 people suspected of involvement in cross-border telecom fraud affecting Chinese citizens were returned from Laos and placed in Chinese police custody, the ministry said.

China has also called on other neighboring countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam to join hands with China in a resolute crackdown on online gambling, telecom fraud and other types of cross-border crime.

Fighting online gambling and telecom fraud is a necessary choice to safeguard the common interests of China and other regional countries, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in February.

The sophisticated and transnational nature of telecom fraud and related crime requires concerted international efforts to address the challenges facing Southeast Asia, according to Benedikt Hofmann, acting regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

The cooperation between China and other countries in the region has been "encouraging" and has created momentum for such collaboration, Hofmann told Xinhua in an interview in February.