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Crime

Thailand's low-key deportations to China latest scamdemic twist

Beijing-driven clampdown on Myanmar could force regional crime shift

Unidentified officials -- some thought to be Chinese -- at Thailand's Mae Sot International Airport prepare for the deportation of Chinese nationals brought across from Myanmar on Feb. 29. (Photo by Danielle Keeton-Olsen)

BANGKOK -- Thailand's biggest-known deportation in well over a decade has thrust the kingdom into China's stepped-up war on cybercrime, and observers say it could signal a major shift in Southeast Asia's rampant scamming and human trafficking industries away from conflict-torn Myanmar.

Over three days from Feb. 29 -- a leap day in a region obsessed by numerology -- nearly 1,000 Chinese nationals were transported in white tour buses across the Moei River, not far north of the Thai town of Mae Sot on the Myanmar border. Myanmar Now, a Burmese news portal, put the exact figure at 997.

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