India will send a special flight to repatriate around 500 of its citizens who crossed into Thailand after escaping a military crackdown on a major cybercrime hub in Myanmar, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul announced on Wednesday.
The group is among more than 1,500 foreign nationals who fled into Thailand’s border town of Mae Sot following a series of military operations launched by Myanmar’s army last week against the notorious KK Park compound — a sprawling complex known internationally as a centre for large-scale online fraud.
Local Thai authorities said the escapees come from 28 countries and are currently being sheltered and processed for repatriation.
Prime Minister Anutin said the Indian government has asked for Thailand’s cooperation to expedite the return of its citizens. “India has asked for cooperation from Thailand; they don’t want this to burden us,” Anutin told reporters. “They will send a plane to pick these victims up, and the plane will land directly in Mae Sot.”
Anutin added that India’s ambassador to Thailand would meet with immigration officials to speed up legal verification procedures ahead of the flight’s arrival.
This marks the second major evacuation effort by India this year. In early 2025, New Delhi arranged a similar repatriation of citizens rescued from cyberscam compounds operating along the Thai-Myanmar border after regional authorities intensified their crackdown on transnational criminal networks.
KK Park, located in Myanmar’s Karen State, has long been associated with illegal online fraud operations run by Chinese criminal syndicates and protected by local militias aligned with Myanmar’s military. The compound and several others like it have become infamous for trafficking people from across Asia, luring them with false job offers and then forcing them to run online scams targeting victims worldwide.
According to the United Nations, the border regions connecting Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia have emerged as major hubs for online fraud since the COVID-19 pandemic. The UN estimates that billions of dollars have been generated through criminal schemes that exploit hundreds of thousands of trafficked workers held against their will in these compounds.
Thai authorities say they are coordinating closely with embassies from multiple countries to facilitate the safe return of those rescued from Myanmar.
For India, the evacuation underscores growing concerns about the safety of its citizens working in the region and reflects broader international pressure on Myanmar’s authorities to dismantle the cybercrime networks that have flourished amid the country’s ongoing political and security turmoil.
