At least seven Japanese nationals have been taken into protective custody as of Feb. 20 from large-scale scam centers at the Thai-Myanmar border – thought to hold at least 120,000 people – with many more still believed to be in captivity.
The Japanese nationals are among hundreds of thousands of people who police say have been coerced into engaging in online scams. On Feb. 20, authorities in Thailand began to send back those that had been held at the scam centers in large numbers, with 200 Chinese citizens sent back to their country and hundreds more expected to be in the coming days.
“Due to the political unrest in Myanmar, it is difficult to gauge the situation through local authorities, and therefore as the national police, we are working to understand the situation through investigations of those involved,” Shigeyuki Tani, the National Police Agency’s director of the criminal affairs bureau, said Feb. 20.
“We believe that the scam center may be used as a base for fraud against people in Japan and that there may be other Japanese nationals still held there,” he added.
A Foreign Ministry official said that they are as yet unsure how many people may still be held captive in the area. (The Japan Times)
毎週届く！
