Police were called to homes in the village of Nong Lu, in the border province of Kanchanaburi, which is a gateway to Myanmar's Three Pagodas Pass, described as a notorious hub for cyber scammers. At one property they found two ramshackle homes using enough daily internet bandwidth to power an entire village. Investigators uncovered a 48-core fiberoptic cable with a robust covering, strung along pylons and stretching 350 meters (1,100 feet) across the border.
Trairat Viriyasirikul, deputy secretary general and acting secretary general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, said the cable was using about 6 terabytes of data a day, enough to serve 300 to 400 people. Instead, the data was being illegally routed to keep a suspected Myanmar scam compound online. That compound reportedly contained an illegal border casino and scam center.
An unidentified male suspect reportedly pocketed 700 baht (around $20) a day for the privilege of running the cable through his house. The report implies he was paid by a scam gang.
The case is part of a larger problem in the region. Myanmar has reportedly become the epicentre of the global scam trade, a title vacated by Cambodia in recent years. It is alleged that mainly Chinese scam bosses are running more decentralized operations in small hotels, condos, and villas, abandoning larger factory-style operations. The Three Pagodas Pass is reportedly protected by ethnic armed militias who shelter these criminals. NGOs claim hundreds, if not thousands, of people operating in the region are trafficked and forced into the trade.