Police officers escort telecommunications fraud suspects from a charted plane arriving from Laos at the Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport in Henan Province on September 11, 2023. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Tengchong in Southwest China's Yunnan Province will temporarily establish a border control zone to effectively prevent and combat telecommunications fraud originating from Myanmar from October 1 to December 31, according to the official account of Tengchong government on Tuesday. Experts say that if these crimes are not controlled, the situation may deteriorate rapidly and bring unnecessary risk to both China and Southeast Asian countries.

People and vehicles entering the border control zone will be registered and checked. The notice explains that the purpose of establishing the zone is to implement classified management of personnel and vehicles entering the zone, restrict unrelated individuals from entering the zone, reduce the probability of people smuggling across the border and organizing or participating in telecommunications fraud in Myanmar.

Individuals and vehicles  entering the border control zone without permission will be notified and handled by the border defense office.

According to the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau on Wednesday, since the launch of the public security crackdown on June 25, Beijing public security has cracked down on more than 16,000 various types of cases. A total of more than 4,500 cases of telecommunications and internet fraud were handled, and more than 60 criminal dens were destroyed. In particular, 132 suspects involved in naked chat extortion and telecom fraud  were escorted back to China, creating a strong deterrent.

A report from the United Nations published on Tuesday said organized crime gangs have set up remote bases in Myanmar's border area near China - locations that are hard for police to reach and where the trafficking victims they use to perpetrate online scams have little hope of escape.

Billions of dollars have been scammed by crime groups based across the Mekong region, as well as in the Philippines, who bombard the internet with dating scams, extortion and investment pyramid schemes, according to the report.

Experts pointed out that other countries in Southeast Asia have also been affected by telecommunications fraud. 

Telecommunications fraud has had a relatively bad impact on the country, Ge Hongliang, director of the China-ASEAN Maritime Security Research Center at Guangxi University for Nationalities, told the Global Times on Wednesday, noting that with the increasing number of people who go overseas for work, if such crimes are not controlled, the situation may deteriorate rapidly and bring unnecessary risk to Southeast Asian countries. 

At the same time, to tackle the regional scourge, senior officials from ASEAN, China and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime have agreed to address transnational organized crime and trafficking in persons associated with casinos and scams on Tuesday.

"Trafficking in persons connected to casinos and scam operations run by organized crime gangs has mushroomed across Southeast Asia, particularly in the Mekong," said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC regional representative.

"There is an urgent need for regional cooperation to address these increasingly integrated and interlinked crimes in the region, as well as the ecosystem they exist in."

The proliferation of telecom fraud and transnational crime has had an impact on the cooperation between China and ASEAN members, and has had a bad influence on the image of ASEAN countries. These cases test the ability of China and ASEAN to manage cross-border governance, and test the relationship of trust between China and ASEAN in regional governance, so it is imperative to strengthen transnational cooperation, Ge said.