State of the Scam

Episode #464: Dr. Tun Aung Shwe, a researcher, former public health practitioner, political activist, and National Unity Government representative to Australia discusses Myanmar’s proliferating scam centers, calling them a symptom of a far deeper political and economic system rooted in decades of military rule. He explains that they began as small, family-run operations in northeastern Shan, operating initially on the borderlands, but have expanded rapidly, even into Yangon, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw. Scam centers operate under the protection of the military and its allied militias, continuing a long-standing pattern in which armed patronage and illicit economies sustain military power.

The notorious Border Guard Forces are an example of this dynamic. Formed from splinter groups of ethnic armed organizations under military pressure, these forces control territory, protect scam compounds, and support the junta’s political agenda, including its planned elections, in exchange for freedom to conduct illegal business. He describes this arrangement as consistent with earlier strategies used under General Ne Win half a century ago, linking counterinsurgency directly to criminal enterprise.

Tun Aung Shwe dismisses the military’s public crackdowns on scam centers as mere propaganda. While resistance groups preserve evidence and invite international observers when they close down a center, the military quickly destroys anything that can be traced back to it. He explains how, when Chinese authorities presented evidence implicating senior officers in scams targeting Chinese nationals, that pressure prompted limited internal action, but otherwise, the junta continues its institutional involvement in centers targeting other countries. He links the military’s staged anti-scam actions to the junta’s ongoing effort to regain international legitimacy.

Contrast all this, he says, with the post-coup revolutionary movement, which has articulated shared principles for a federal democratic union without military involvement and now prioritizes security sector reform to build a professional federal force. “No one believes the Myanmar military today,” he concludes, “because the military lied again and again.”