BANGKOK: Thailand is studying the idea of building a wall on part of its border with Cambodia to prevent illegal crossings, its government said on Monday (Mar 3), as a multi-national effort to dismantle a sprawling network of illicit scam centres mounts.
The crackdown is widening against scam centres responsible for carrying out massive financial fraud out of Southeast Asia, especially those on Thailand’s porous borders with Myanmar and Cambodia, where hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked by criminal gangs in recent years, according to the United Nations.
At the weekend, Thai police received 119 Thai nationals from Cambodian authorities after a raid in the town of Poipet pulled out over 215 people from a scam compound.
“If it is done, how will it be done? What results and how will it solve problems? This is a study,” Thai government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said of the wall proposal, without specifying its length.
Cambodia’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the wall proposal.
Thailand and Cambodia share a border of 817km. The Thai defence ministry has previously proposed a wall to block off a 55km natural crossing between Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province and Poipet, which at present is only protected by razor wire.
