World
They were forced to scam others worldwide; now thousands are detained on the Burmese border
Thousands of sick, exhausted and terrified young men and women, from countries all over the world squat in rows, packed shoulder to shoulder, surgical masks covering their mouths and eyes.
Their nightmare was supposed to be over.
UN WARNS OF ‘FRIGHTENING AND DISTURBING’ ACTIVITY BY MILITARY, REBELS IN WESTERN BURMA
Last month, a dramatic and highly publicized operation by Thai, Chinese and Myanmar authorities led to the release of more than 7,000 people from locked compounds in Myanmar where they were forced to trick Americans and others out of their life savings. But survivors have found themselves trapped once again, this time in overcrowded facilities with no medical care, limited food and no idea when they’ll be sent home.
One young man from India said about 800 people were being held in the same facility as him, sharing 10 dirty toilets. He said many of the people there were feverish and coughing. Like all former enslaved scammers who talked to The Associated Press, he spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.
“If we die here with health issues, who is responsible for that?” he asked.
The armed groups who are holding the survivors, as well as Thai officials across the border, say they are awaiting action from the detainees’ home governments.
It’s one of the largest potential rescues of forced laborers in modern history, but advocates say the first major effort to crack down on the cyber scam industry has turned into a growing humanitarian crisis.
The people released are just a small fraction of what could be 300,000 people working in similar scam operations across the region, according to an estimate from the United States Institute of Peace. Human rights groups and analysts add that the networks that run these illegal scams will continue to operate unless much broader action is taken against them.
A high-profile crackdown
The trapped people, some of whom are highly educated and fluent in English, were initially lured to Thailand with promises of lucrative office jobs, only to find themselves locked in buildings where they describe being forced to sit at computers up to 16 hours a day running scams. Refusing to work could bring beatings, starvation and electric shocks.
People from China, Vietnam and Ethiopia, believed to have been trafficked and forced to work in scam centers, sit with their faces masked while in detention after being released from the centers in Myawaddy district in eastern Myanmar, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanaphon Wuttison)
“Your passport is confiscated, you cannot go outside and everything is like hell, a living hell,” a trapped Pakistani man told The Associated Press.
Cyber scams run from compounds have flourished during the pandemic, targeting people around the world. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes estimates that between $18 billion and $37 billion was lost in Asia alone in 2023, with minimal government action against the criminal industry’s spread.
Beijing began pushing the region’s governments to crack down this year after a young Chinese actor was trafficked to Myanmar by people who promised him an acting job in Thailand. His girlfriend spearheaded a viral social media campaign that led to his release.
Following that rescue, a senior Chinese government official visited Thailand and Myanmar demanding an end to the scams. In response, Thailand cut electricity, internet and gas supplies to five border towns in Myanmar.
Shortly after, the ethnic militia groups that rule this part of Myanmar — the Kayin Border Guard Force and the Democratic Kayin Buddhist Army — asked some of the trapped scammers if they wanted to leave, and then escorted them out of their compounds.
From forced labor to detention
As the number of people released grew into the thousands, formerly enslaved scammers found themselves caught in indefinite detention just across a narrow, slow-moving river’s width from freedom.
Most are being held either in army camps controlled by the Kayin Border Guard Force, or repurposed scam compounds, where many have been since early February.
For weeks, men and women have shared unsanitary conditions, sleeping on the floor and eating what their captors provide. At one point, the Border Guard Force said that over 7,000 people were crammed into these facilities, as China began busing citizens across the border for flights.
Exclusive photos obtained by AP underscore the detainees’ desperation: Surgical masks, often two per face, cover their eyes, noses and mouths as they huddle under the watchful eyes of armed guards.
“It felt like a blessing that we came out of that trap, but the actual thing is that every person just wants to go back home,” said another Indian man, 24, speaking softly on a contraband phone from inside a makeshift detention center. He asked to not publish his name out of concern for his safety and because the militias guarding them had confiscated their phones.
Last week, fights broke out between Chinese citizens waiting to go home and the security forces guarding them, two detainees told the AP.
An unconfirmed list provided by authorities in Myanmar says they’re holding citizens from 29 countries including Philippines, Kenya and the Czech Republic.
Waiting for a $600 plane ticket
Authorities in Thailand say they cannot allow foreigners to cross the border from Myanmar unless they can be sent home immediately, leaving many to wait for help from embassies that has been long in coming.
China sent a chartered flight Thursday to the tiny Mae Sot airport to pick up a group of its citizens, but few other governments have matched that. There are roughly 130 Ethiopians waiting in a Thai military base, stuck for want of a $600 plane ticket. Dozens of Indonesians were bused out one morning last week, pushing suitcases and carrying plastic bags with their meager possessions as they headed to Bangkok for a flight home.
Thai officials held a meeting this week with representatives from foreign embassies, promising to move “as quickly as possible” to allow them to rescue their trapped citizens. But they warned that Thailand can only manage to receive 300 people per day, down from 500 previously, Monday through Fridays. It also announced it would let embassy staff cross over into Myanmar.
“The ministry attaches very high importance to this and is aware that there are sick people, and that they need to be repatriated,” Nikorndej Balankura, spokesman for Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday.
The Indian Embassy in Bangkok did not respond to requests for comment. The Czech Foreign Ministry says it cannot confirm a Czech citizen is among those repatriated. It says it is in touch with the embassies in Bangkok and Yangon over the issue and that the embassies have not been asked for assistance.
Amy Miller, the Southeast Asia director of Acts of Mercy International who is based at the Thai-Myanmar border, says it’s hard for the world to understand why all of the released workers aren’t free.
“You can literally, with your naked eye, stand at the border and see people inside, on their balconies, in these compounds, and yet we cannot reach them,” she said. Pausing a moment, she gestured out a nearby window toward the Friendship Bridge to Myanmar just blocks away. “I think what people don’t understand is that to enter into another country is an act of war. You cannot just go in and receive these people out.”
Assistance is scarce
Aiding the work on the front lines, especially for those countries with fewer resources, are a handful of small nonprofit groups with very limited funds.
In a nondescript Mae Sot home, Miller’s organization receives escapees and a trickle of survivors who have made it across the river with comfortable couches, clean water, food and working phones to reach their families. She said today’s unprecedented numbers are overwhelming the aid available across the river.
“When we’re looking at numbers in the thousands, the ability to get them over to Thailand and process them and house them and feed them would be impossible for most governments,” said Miller. “It really does require a kind of a global response.”
The recent abrupt halt to U.S. foreign aid funding has made it even harder to get help to released scam center workers.
The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, for example, previously funded care for victims of trafficking in scam compounds in one shelter in Cambodia, but was forced to halt that work by the Trump Administration’s funding freeze announced in January, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation. The halt to funding has also impacted a network of civil society groups that worked to stop human trafficking and rescue survivors in Thailand.
“It’s really heartbreaking to see that there’s such an immense amount of people that are in need of assistance,” said Saskia Kok, Head of Protection Unit in Thailand for the IOM.
In a statement, U.S. officials acknowledged the high pressure impasse.
“The United States remains deeply concerned about online scam operations throughout Southeast Asia, which affect thousands of Americans and individuals from many other countries,” said a State Department spokesperson in a statement sent to the AP.
A bigger problem
While advocates estimate some 50 million people are living in modern slavery, mass rescues of enslaved workers are rare. In 2015, more than 2,000 fishermen were rescued from brutal conditions at sea, liberated after an Associated Press investigation exposed their plight. That same year hundreds of Indians were rescued from brick factories in India. And last year Brazilian prosecutors rescued 163 Chinese nationals working in “slavery-like” conditions at an electric vehicle factory construction site in northeastern Brazil.
“What we are seeing at the Thai-Myanmar border now is the result of years of inaction on a trafficking crisis that has had a devastating impact on thousands of people, many of whom were simply seeking better economic prospect, but were lured to these compounds on false pretenses,” said Amnesty International Myanmar researcher Joe Freeman.
Being forced to commit a crime under threat of violence should not be criminalized, said Freeman. “However, in general we are aware of countries in the region repatriating their nationals from scam compounds only to then charge them with crimes.”
Business as usual
It’s not clear how much of an effect these releases will have on the criminal groups that run the scam centers.
February marked the third time the Thais have cut internet or electricity to towns across the river. Each time, the compounds have managed to work around the cuts. Large compounds have access to diesel-powered generators, as well as access to internet provider Starlink, experts working with law enforcement say.
“The resources is the one thing that they are not lacking and they’ve been able to bring them to bear in the past,” said Benedikt Hoffman, acting representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in the region.
The armed groups that staged the crackdown have also been accused of helping to run scam compounds in Myawaddy. The head of the Kayin Border Guard Force, General Saw Chit Thu, has been sanctioned by the European Union and the United Kingdom for profiting from scam compounds and human trafficking, respectively. Compounds in the DKBA’s control are less well-documented in the public record, but activists say they also control a fair number.
“There is clearly a lot of pressure on the Border Guard Force to take action and helping people to leave is one of the most visible ways to do so,” Hoffman said. “That said, it likely also reflects an adjustment to the business model, reducing the number of people involved — and with less attention, continuing lower key operations.”
It will take simultaneous pressure exerted in multiple areas to truly shut down the compounds, said Hoffman.
In this crackdown, there have been no major prosecutions or compounds shut down.
“This doesn’t affect anything,” said a 23-year-old Pakistani man who had hoped to be freed only to be trapped in an army camp. The bosses, he said, are “rich as hell” and can buy anything they need to keep the lucrative operations going. Meanwhile, he said, conditions are worsening.
“My friends are in really bad condition, we can’t survive here,” he said, requesting anonymity out of fear for retribution from his guards. He asks a question that’s been haunting him day in and day out for weeks: “Is anyone coming for us?”
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U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee described what he believes is the “best option” for Americans looking to flee Israel amid the ongoing unrest across the Middle East.
Huckabee said overnight, “We are getting a lot of requests regarding evacuating from Israel from American citizens who are currently in Israel or who have family here,” and that there are “very limited” options available.
“As of now, the best is utilizing Israel’s Ministry of Tourism shuttle bus to Taba, Egypt and getting flights from there or going on to Cairo for flights back to the U.S.,” Huckabee said on X. “Not sure when Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv will reopen. Hopefully soon, but even when it does, there will be VERY limited flights with priorities to those who already were ticketed by El Al. Doubtful that other airlines will fly in/out for a while.”
“The Ministry of Tourism is operating buses to Taba. That crossing is further away, but it’s open 24/7. There are some flights from Taba, but there are also options to get to Cairo, and it’s operating normally except to Middle Eastern countries. To get out, it’s the best option for now,” Huckabee added.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, left, and emergency personnel at the site of an Iranian missile strike on a residential building in Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 1, 2026. (Alex Brandon/Pool/AFP via Getty Images; Ronen Zvulun/TPX Images of the Day/Reuters)
Huckabee also said he does not recommend Americans exit via Jordan at this time, as “Flights are not consistent and access across the Allenby crossing has limited hours.”
“All of our personnel from [the] embassy are sheltering in place, but I realize you may need to get people out and back home and not continue to incur hotel costs,” the ambassador wrote.
NETANYAHU INSISTS US AND ISRAEL’S STRIKES ON IRAN WON’T LEAD TO ‘ENDLESS WAR’
People take shelter in Tel Aviv on Sunday, March 1, 2026, after Iran launched missile barrages following attacks by the U.S. and Israel on Saturday. (Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)
U.S. Embassy Jerusalem said in a statement early Tuesday morning that it is “not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel.” It also mentioned the Israeli Ministry of Tourism’s buses to Taba.
“To be added to the passenger list for a shuttle, you must register via the Ministry’s evacuation form,” it said.
A firefighter works to put out a fire in Tel Aviv after Iran launched missiles into Israel on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Tomer Appelbaum/Reuters)
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“The U.S. Embassy cannot make any recommendation (for or against) the Ministry of Tourism’s shuttle. If you choose to avail yourself of this option to depart, the U.S. government cannot guarantee your safety,” it added.
Hours after Israel and the United States launched attacks on Iran on Saturday, Tehran launched retaliatory strikes on Israel and US military assets located in several Gulf countries.
Iran has since struck targets in Israel as well as US military assets in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
While the Iranian attacks initially focused on US military assets, Gulf states said Tehran has expanded attacks targeting civilian infrastructure including hotels, airports and energy facilities.
What sites has Iran hit in Gulf countries?
US military assets
On Saturday, Bahrain said that a missile attack targeted the headquarters of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, located in the capital, Manama.
Kuwait’s Defence Ministry said that Ali al-Salem airbase came under attack by a number of ballistic missiles, all of which were intercepted by Kuwaiti air defence systems.
In Qatar, the Defence Ministry says it “thwarted” attacks on the country in accordance with a “pre-approved security plan”, intercepting “all missiles” before they reached the country’s territory. On Saturday, Iran had targeted the Al Udeid airbase, which hosts the US forces, the government said.
Over the past four days of the conflict, attacks on Gulf countries have intensified, and governments in the region say they have intercepted large numbers of Iranian missiles and drones.
Bahrain said its air defence systems have destroyed 73 missiles and 91 drones launched by Iran since the start of the latest conflict.
The UAE Defence Ministry spokesperson said that 186 missiles were launched and 172 of them were destroyed. One missile landed on UAE territory. Additionally, 812 Iranian drones were monitored, and 755 of them were intercepted.
Qatar’s Ministry of Defence said that three cruise missiles were detected and intercepted since Saturday. Additionally, 101 ballistic missiles were detected, and 98 were intercepted. Thirty-nine drones were detected, and 24 were intercepted. On Monday, the Qatari Defence Ministry said in a statement that the air force downed two Iranian SU-24 fighter jets.
US embassies
Early on Tuesday, a “limited fire” broke out at the US embassy in the Saudi capital of Riyadh after it was hit by two drones. The attack caused “minor material damage” to the compound, the Saudi Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
Black smoke was seen rising over Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter, which houses foreign missions, after the attack, the Reuters news agency reported.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kuwait released a statement on Tuesday saying that a “treacherous Iranian attack” targeted the US embassy building in Kuwait. This came a day after videos emerged that showed smoke emerging from near the embassy in Kuwait City.
The statement called the attack a “flagrant violation of all international norms and laws, including the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Vienna Convention of 1961 on Diplomatic Relations, which grant immunity to diplomatic buildings and their staff even in cases of armed conflict.”
On Monday, three US jets crashed in Kuwait. The US military blamed the crash on “friendly fire”, but a Kuwaiti statement did not give a reason for the incident.
The US embassy in Kuwait on Tuesday suspended operations until further notice, citing the “ongoing regional tensions”.
Energy infrastructure
Qatar’s state-run energy firm and the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), QatarEnergy, announced on Monday that it had halted LNG production following Iranian attacks on its operational facilities in Ras Laffan and Mesaieed in Qatar.
Iranian officials have publicly denied targeting QatarEnergy.
Saudi Arabia shut down operations at the Ras Tanura plant, its biggest domestic oil refinery operated by Saudi Aramco, after a fire broke out at the facility that officials said was caused by debris from the interception of two Iranian drones.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency quoted an unnamed Iranian military source as saying: “The attack on Aramco was an Israeli false flag operation,” adding that Israel’s goal was “to distract the minds of regional countries from its crimes in attacking civilian sites in Iran.”
“Iran has announced frankly that it will target all American and Israeli interests, installations and facilities in the region, and has attacked many of them so far, but Aramco facilities have not been among the targets of Iranian attacks so far,” the source told the agency.
Tasnim quoted the source as saying: “According to data provided to us by intelligence sources, the port of Fujairah in the UAE is also one of the next targets of the Israelis in the false flag operation, and this regime intends to attack it.”
Airports
Airports have been targeted in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the UAE, and also in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq. Officials have blamed Iran for the strikes, though Tehran has not publicly claimed responsibility for the attacks on those facilities.
An Al Jazeera correspondent reported that Erbil International Airport was targeted twice on Saturday, with a drone attempting to target the airport and air defences intercepting and shooting it down.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told a news conference on Tuesday that there were attempts to attack Hamad International Airport, but they all failed.
At Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport, at least one person was killed and seven wounded during what the facility’s authority called an “incident.”
The Dubai media office wrote in an X post that part of Dubai International Airport “sustained minor damage in an incident”, without specifying what the incident was or who was behind it.
The region’s airspace, one of the busiest in the world, has been closed in the wake of the conflict, stranding tens of thousands of travellers. About 20,000 passengers have been stranded in the UAE, while almost 8,000 people are also stuck in transit in Qatar as the airspace remains closed.
Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad, which together operate more than 1,000 flights daily, have suspended operations. Emirates on Monday announced limited flight resumption, but normal operations have not started.
Hotels and residencies
The Interior Ministry of Bahrain said on Saturday that several residential buildings in Manama had been hit, reporting on X that the civil defence was engaged in firefighting and rescue operations at the affected sites.
On Saturday, Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones across the UAE, its Ministry of Defence said, with fires and smoke reaching the Dubai landmarks of Palm Jumeirah and Burj Al Arab.
Videos circulating on social media showed smoke emerging from the entrance of a five-star luxury hotel, Fairmont The Palm, in the Palm Jumeirah area.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson al-Ansari said on Tuesday that Iranian targets are not just military, but all of the country’s territory. He did not go into detail about which parts of Qatar are specifically being targeted.
Al-Ansari said that all red lines have been crossed; from the north to the south of Qatar, Al Jazeera’s Laura Khan reported from Doha, Qatar.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had targeted a hotel complex in Bahrain because it was hosting US soldiers.
“We are not targeting our brothers or neighbours in the Persian Gulf. But we are targeting US targets, and this is clear,” Araghchi said on Tuesday.
“We started by attacking their military bases, and they evacuated their military bases and moved them to hotels and created human shields for themselves. We try to target military personnel, infrastructure and facilities helping the US and its army in launching operations against Iran.”
Why is Iran targeting civilian infrastructure in the Gulf?
One of the reasons why the Iranians are resorting to hitting civilian infrastructure in neighbouring countries is to “demonstrate their military capabilities,” Luciano Zaccara, Iran and Gulf analyst at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera.
“Iran is retaliating against all the attacks, not in one place, but in almost 10 simultaneously,” he said.
“The other thing is the political message they want to give that if Iran is attacked, the impact will be global,” Zaccara said, noting that the main message is that not only Iran, but the economy of the whole region, will be affected.
“And neither the US, the region, nor the consumers of energy are able to continue this way,” he said.
Zaccara added: “But at this point, they [Iran] don’t care that much, considering that they have been under sanctions for a long time. So it’s not affecting the Iranian economy that much. And the fact that the oil price is going up – even though they export very little – means they are still surviving.”
World
‘God of War’ Creator Says TV First Look Is ‘So Dumb’ and ‘Terrible’: Looks Like He’s ‘S—ing in the Woods’
David Jaffe, the creator of the “God of War” video games, took to his YouTube channel on Saturday to slam the first look image from Amazon Prime‘s upcoming “God of War” TV show. He said the frame, which features franchise hero Kratos in the woods with his son, was “so bad in so many ways.”
“I’m sure everybody’s trying real hard, [but] it’s so dumb,” Jaffe said. “But let’s be incredibly clear, okay? Two things can be true. This can be a terrible image, and it is. It’s so bad in so many ways, which we’ll talk about in a moment. And Ron Moore is awesome, who is the showrunner… This guy is a juggernaut of a talented fellow. I have absolutely no doubt it is going to be a good show.”
Jaffe added that he doesn’t mind that star Ryan Hurst isn’t a dead ringer for Kratos, but instead takes issue with his expression and pose in what he described as a “dumb fucking image.”
“Kratos in this pose with this expression, not the guy’s face, but this expression, he just looks stupid,” Jaffe explained. “If you’re going to reveal, to most people, a brand new character that you hope is going to carry your series, for the first time, and they’ve never really seen this before, and this is the way you introduce them?”
He continued, “Maybe that’s conscious. Maybe they’re like, ‘Well, what we really want to focus on is the father-son story. And if we focus on him being like, Spartan rage, and all that, maybe people are like, “I don’t want to watch that show.”’ Ok maybe. But then, at that point, could you find a picture that doesn’t look like he’s shitting in the woods? Cause that’s what the picture looks like.”
Amazon Prime unveiled the first look photo on Feb. 27. Along with Hurst as Kratos and Callum Vinson as his son, other cast members include Max Parker as Heimdall, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Thor, Mandy Patinkin as Odin, Alastair Duncan as Mimir, Danny Woodburn and Jeff Gulka as brothers Brok and Sindri and Ed Skrein as Baldur.
Watch Jaffe’s entire reaction below.
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