Sanctions galore for Myanmar's scam center kingpin
On May 5, the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) finally placed Chit Thu and his two sons, Htoo Eh Moo and Chit Chit, and the KNA on a sanctions list on accusations of running a transnational criminal organization through the scam centers of Shwe Kokko, situated north of the border town of Myawaddy.
The US Treasury announcement said that:
(t)he KNA profits from cyber scam schemes on an industrial scale by leasing land it controls to other organized crime groups, and providing support for human trafficking, smuggling, and the sale of utilities used to provide energy to scam operations… Chit Thu has emerged as one of the central figures in Burma's scam economy, facilitating transnational crimes in a KNA-controlled zone along the border with Thailand.
What the OFAC designation only mentions in passing is that Chit Thu, up until March 2024, was the commander of the Karen State Border Guard Force (BGF) since 2009, a colonel in the Myanmar army and a long-time 'proxy' of the Myanmar military.
In December 2023, Chit Thu, one of his BGF colleagues and a Chinese criminal were sanctioned by the United Kingdom under the Global Human Rights (Sanctions) Regulations 2020, on claims they were:
responsible for, provided support for or obtained benefit from activity that violates the right not to be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the right to be free from slavery, not to be held in servitude or required to perform forced or compulsory labour [connected to Shwe Kokko scam centers.]
In October 2024, the European Union (EU) sanctioned Chit Thu, two of his subordinates and the Chit Linn Myaing Group for alleged:
transnational crime, including online fraud, drug and human trafficking, and is experiencing massive human rights violations, including forced labour and torture (and for being) closely associated with the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces), with whom it collaborates, for example by informing the Tatmadaw about opponents of the government and by forcefully recruiting soldiers.
For anyone closely watching the scam center saga over the past several years, Chit Thu's prominent involvement wasn't a surprise. The question was why it took these sanctioning entities so long, with all the publicly available evidence of his complicity.
A May 2024 report by Justice for Myanmar (J4M) laid out in exhaustive detail the expansive business empire of Chit Thu and the KNA, with involvement in online scam centers and other enterprises going back to at least 2016 when Chit Thu signed a deal with Chinese criminal She Zhijiang to develop the Yatai New City project in the BGF's long-time base area of Shwe Kokko.
All of these developments have been extensively documented by Myanmar's independent media and rights groups over the past decade.
Chit Thu first rose in Myanmar's eastern borderlands in 1994, when he was ejected from the rebel Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and joined the Myanmar military-aligned Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), leading its notorious 999 Special Battalion.
Chit Thu and his troops were engaged in multiple cross-border atrocities, entering Thailand to kill civilians and burn down refugee camps. These crimes were assiduously documented by multiple groups, including the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG).
Chit Thu's business empire later reportedly expanded to ya-ba ('crazy medicine', or methamphetamine), logging, smuggling, including trafficking human beings, especially Myanmar migrant workers, real estate and construction. He also built a massive theme park and resort outside of the Karen state capital Hpa-an, eponymously known as Chit Thu Myaing.
For over two decades, Chit Thu has been a case study in prolonged impunity in an environment where insecurity merges seamlessly with illicit enterprise, collective elite rent-seeking and the 'gray area' of multiple antagonists with shifting loyalties in a long-running civil war.
This extended to the 'democracy period' of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) from 2016 to 2021, when one of Chit Thu's companies, Chit Linn Myaing Toyota, became a subcontractor for the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to assist in building an extension of the Asia Highway through an Asia Development Bank (ADB) loan.
However, Chit Thu's fortunes became increasingly tenuous following the 2021 coup and the rise of multiple armed groups fighting the State Administration Council (SAC) junta regime. As conflict spreads, his combined military strength and economic riches have been gradually challenged.
He quit the BGF and the Myanmar army, establishing the KNA after vexed negotiations with the military, who wanted Chit Thu to use his forces more aggressively against the KNLA and their multiple anti-military People's Defense Force (PDF) allies.
However, he was dragged back into negotiations in April 2024 when the KNLA was projected to seize the strategic border town of Myawaddy.
Chit Thu's involvement in brokering the arrangement that averted the KNLA's full capture of the town illustrates the crucial, if conflicted, role he has played for many years, negotiating with multiple Karen armed factions, Myanmar military officials and multiple cross-border commercial and security concerns.
But his deep involvement in scam centers was the main cause of the three sanctions listings, as a combination of widespread media scrutiny and intensive Chinese pressure to force some version of a 'crackdown' spurred multiple efforts to curtail the fraud operations and 'rescue' various nationalities working in Shwe Kokko and elsewhere.
The SAC has claimed to have processed over 10,000 people caught up in the scam trade. In February, the Thai Department of Special Investigation (DSI) requested a court to issue an arrest warrant for Chit Thu, but it is not clear if this has been granted or what effect the OFAC designation could have.
So is this the end of the line for Chit Thu? The lessons of Chit Thu are not just the rise of one corpulent gangster, but the multiple types of border strongmen, entrepreneurs of violence and illicit enterprise with ambiguous political roles that have long thrived in Myanmar.
These actors continued to thrive unimpeded by 'reform' and the peace process of 2011-2021, making a mockery of the rule of law.
The Kachin warlord and BGF commander Zhakung Ting Ying saw his fortunes reversed in 2024 when most of his territory along the China border, including lucrative rare earth mines, was seized by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
Yord Serk, chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), is another example of a border strongman, albeit one diminished by his vacillation since the 2021 coup, trying to sit out the civil war and find a way to benefit from the carnage.
As his legitimacy withers amongst many Shan inside Myanmar, and the hundreds of thousands living in Thailand, Yord Serk has to find an accommodation with the SAC and border authorities to find a way to exist.
One suggestion floated amongst observers is for the RCSS to become one variety of BGF or militia, continuing a general tradition of balancing multiple relationships similar to Chit Thu.
The spread of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) over three decades along the Myanmar-Thailand border has been another example of 'parallel state' actors gaining power.
From sparking the modern methamphetamine trade in the late 1990s and flooding Thailand with ya-ba , the Wa now have a monopoly of control, either directly or through proxies, of the joint border and extensive interests in casinos, narcotics, smuggling and a range of mining interests.
Gold mining activities along the border have over several months polluted rivers running into Thailand with arsenic, with minimal pushback against the Wa, according to a recent article by Paskorn Jumlongrach in Transborder News.
As welcome as the US sanctions on Chit Thu may be, it is still too early to predict his demise. A survivor with multiple fingers in multiple dirty pies, he could reach eclectic accommodations and deals with multiple actors to ensure his exposure over scams centers is a temporary setback, a kind of gangland market correction.
The pity is that Chit Thu will likely never face full justice for his three-decade crime spree in Karen state, replete with forced labor, land grabbing, narcotics peddling and modern-day slavery in the scam centers.
A greater pity is that he is not the only one in the Myanmar conflict multiverse, and likely not the last to rise from the chaos of war.
David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict, humanitarianism, and human rights in Myanmar
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
HKFP
5 hours ago
- HKFP
Attacker wounds Japanese national in China with rock, Tokyo embassy says
An 'unknown assailant' attacked and wounded a Japanese national accompanied by a child in the Chinese city of Suzhou, Tokyo's embassy said Friday, calling on Beijing to prevent such incidents. The incident comes a year after a Japanese mother and child were wounded in a knife attack in the same city. A Chinese woman had died trying to stop the assailant. In Thursday's attack, 'a Japanese national walking with a child was struck by what appeared to be a rock by an unknown assailant inside a Suzhou, Jiangsu Province subway station', Tokyo's embassy in Beijing told AFP in a statement. A spokesperson for China's foreign ministry told AFP that 'the suspect has been apprehended'. The victim was 'promptly taken to hospital for treatment, and there is no threat to life', the ministry said. China and Japan are key trading partners, but increased friction over territorial rivalries and military spending has frayed ties in recent years. Japan's brutal occupation of parts of China before and during World War II remains a sore point, with Beijing accusing Tokyo of failing to atone for its past. In June last year, a Japanese mother and child were attacked in Suzhou on the anniversary of the 1931 'Mukden incident', known in China as a day of national humiliation. The 1931 explosion of a railway in China was used by Japanese soldiers as a pretext to occupy the city of Mukden, now called Shenyang, and invade the wider region of Manchuria. And in September, a Japanese schoolboy was fatally stabbed in the southern city of Shenzhen. Media reports about the latest attack in Suzhou were censored on the Chinese messaging app WeChat. 'The Japanese government has urged the Chinese government to… severely punish the suspect, prevent similar incidents, and ensure the safety of Japanese nationals', Tokyo's embassy said Friday. Beijing's foreign ministry said 'China will continue to take effective steps, to protect the safety of foreigners in China'.
HKFP
9 hours ago
- HKFP
Nvidia says no ‘backdoors' in chips allowing remote access, as China questions security
Nvidia chips do not contain 'backdoors' allowing remote access, the US tech giant has said, after Beijing summoned company representatives to discuss 'serious security issues'. The California-based company is a world-leading producer of AI semiconductors, and this month became the first company to hit $4 trillion in market value. But it has become entangled in trade tensions between China and the United States, and Washington effectively restricts which chips Nvidia can export to China on national security grounds. 'Cybersecurity is critically important to us. Nvidia does not have 'backdoors' in our chips that would give anyone a remote way to access or control them,' Nvidia said in a statement Thursday. A key issue has been Chinese access to the 'H20' — a less powerful version of Nvidia's AI processing units that the company developed specifically for export to China. Nvidia said this month it would resume H20 sales to China after Washington pledged to remove licensing curbs that had halted exports. But the tech giant still faces obstacles — US lawmakers have proposed plans to require Nvidia and other manufacturers of advanced AI chips to include built-in location tracking capabilities. Beijing's top internet regulator said Thursday it had summoned Nvidia representatives to discuss recently discovered 'serious security issues' involving the H20. The Cyberspace Administration of China said it had asked Nvidia to 'explain the security risks of vulnerabilities and backdoors in its H20 chips sold to China and submit relevant supporting materials'. China is aiming to reduce reliance on foreign tech by promoting Huawei's domestically developed 910C chip as an alternative to the H20, said Jost Wubbeke of the Sinolytics consultancy. 'From that perspective, the US decision to allow renewed exports of the H20 to China could be seen as counterproductive, as it might tempt Chinese hyperscalers to revert to the H20, potentially undermining momentum behind the 910C and other domestic alternatives,' he said. Other hurdles to Nvidia's operations in China are the sputtering economy, beset by a years-long property sector crisis, and heightened trade headwinds under US President Donald Trump. CEO Jensen Huang said during a visit to Beijing this month that the company remained committed to serving local customers, adding that he had been assured during talks with top Chinese officials that the country was 'open and stable'.
AllAfrica
11 hours ago
- AllAfrica
China seeks power beyond water with world's biggest dam
China's already vast infrastructure programme has entered a new phase as building work starts on the Motuo hydropower project. The dam will consist of five cascade hydropower stations arranged from upstream to downstream and, once completed, will be the world's largest source of hydroelectric power. It will be four times larger than China's previous signature hydropower project, the Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtze River in central China. The Chinese premier, Li Qiang, has described the proposed mega dam as the 'project of the century.' In several ways, Li's description is apt. The vast scale of the project is a reflection of China's geopolitical status and ambitions. Possibly the most controversial aspect of the dam is its location. The site is on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River on the eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau. This is connected to the Brahmaputra River, which flows into the Indian border state of Arunachal Pradesh as well as Bangladesh. It is an important source of water for Bangladesh and India. Both nations have voiced concerns over the dam, particularly since it can potentially affect their water supplies. The tension with India over the dam is compounded by the fact that Arunachal Pradesh has been a focal point of Sino-Indian tensions. China claims the region, which it refers to as Zangnan, saying it is part of what it calls South Tibet. At the same time, the dam presents Beijing with a potentially formidable geopolitical tool in its dealings with the Indian government. The location of the dam means that it is possible for Beijing to restrict India's water supply. This potential to control the dow nstream water supply to another country has been demonstrated by the effects that earlier dam projects in the region have had on the nations of the Mekong River Delta in 2019. As a result, this gives Beijing a significant degree of leverage over its neighbors. One country restricting water supply to put pressure on another is by no means unprecedented. In fact, in April 2025, following a terror attack by Pakistan-based The Resistance Front in Kashmir, which killed 26 people (mainly tourists), India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, restricting water supplies to Pakistani farmers in the region. So the potential for China's dam to disrupt water flows will further compound the already tense geopolitics of South Asia. The Motuo mega dam is a testament to China's prowess in large-scale infrastructure projects. China's expertise with massive infrastructure projects is a big part of modern Chinese diplomacy through its massive Belt and Road Initiative. This involves joint ventures with many developing nations to build large-scale infrastructure, such as ports, rail systems and the like. It has caused much consternation in Washington and Brussels, which view these initiatives as a wider effort to build Chinese influence at their expense. The completion of the dam will bring Beijing significant symbolic capital as a demonstration of China's power and prosperity – an integral feature of the image of China that Beijing is very keen to promote. It can also be seen as a manifestation of both China's aspirations and its longstanding fears. The Motuo hydropower project also represents the latest chapter of China's long battle for control of its rivers, a key story in the development of Chinese civilization. Rivers such as the Yangtze have been at the heart of the prosperity of several Chinese dynasties (the Yangtze is still a major economic driver in modern China) and have devastated others. The massive Yangtse flood of 1441 threatened the stability of the Ming dynasty, while an estimated 2 million people died when the river flooded in 1931. France 24 report on the construction of the mega dam project. Such struggles have been embodied in Chinese mythology in the form of the Gun-Yu myth. This tells the story of the way floods displaced the population of ancient China, probably based on an actual flooding at Jishi Gorge on the Yellow River in what is now Qinghai province in 1920BC. This has led to the common motif of rivers needing human control to abate natural disaster, a theme present in much classical Chinese culture and poetry. The pursuit of controlling China's rivers has also been one of the primary influences on the formation of the Chinese state, as characterised by the concept of zhishui 治水 (controlling the rivers). Efforts to control the Yangtze have shaped the centralized system of governance that has characterised China throughout its history. In this sense, the Motuo hydropower project represents the latest chapter in China's quest to harness the power of its rivers. Such a quest remains imperative for China, and its importance has been further underlined by the challenges of climate change, which has seen natural resources such as water becoming increasingly limited. The Ganges River has already been identified as one of the world's water scarcity hotspots. As well as sustaining China's population, the hydropower provided by the dam is another part of China's wider push towards self-sufficiency. It's estimated that the dam could generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year – about the same amount as produced by the whole UK. While this will meet the needs of the local population, it also further entrenches China's ability to produce cheap electricity – something that has enabled China to become and remain a manufacturing superpower. Construction has only just begun, but the Motuo hydropower project has already become a microcosm of China's wider push towards development. It's also a game-changer in the geopolitics of Asia, giving China the potential to exert greater control in shaping the region's water supplies. This, in turn, will give it greater power to shape the geopolitics of the region. At the same time, it is also the latest chapter of China's longstanding quest to harness its waterways, which now has regional implications beyond anything China's previous dynasties could imagine. Tom Harper is lecturer in international relations, University of East London This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
