Thousands of young people are working at the gambling houses in Myawaddy, Karen State, after the military service law was passed, according to some job agents in Myawaddy Town.
Since February, when the military service law was passed, there have been many young people coming to Myawaddy to work, U Kyi, a job agent, said. The number has increased since the military junta collected and summoned those eligible for military service.
“The only good-earning job here is online gambling and money fraud. Only these jobs are here, and the youth are once connected to the company that will work for them online,” he said.
There are thousands of job-offer posts on the Myawaddy job search pages on the Telegram channel. According to some people who work in these industries, there has been an increase in recruitment since the military service law was issued.
A 28-year-old man working in that industry said, “I don’t have the money to run abroad; I can’t stay at home, and I have no choice. I have to come, even though I know it’s bad. I came here because someone showed me that on Telegram. There are different parts where I have to do different things, such as finding, chatting, and doing killer, and the salaries are also different.”
Salaries in online gaming, customer service, online marketing, hotels, and casinos start at a minimum of Baht 15,000 (around 1500,000 Myanmar Kyats), and salaries vary depending on the positions and skills.
“If we can speak Chinese, we get a higher salary. As they say, if we can cheat money from another person, we get a percentage based on the money we cheated. In addition to the salary, we get a percentage based on the money we cheated. If can’t cheat, there were people who were fired. Some of them don’t earn a single penny and leave, but there are people who paid compensation to leave. But these jobs were offered a lot, so they keep doing it, and they don’t go back,” explained a young man involved in financial fraud.
Currently, there are around 300 illegal Chinese gambling business and online financial fraud business across the border in Myawaddy Township.
In January of this year, the military leaders of Myanmar and Thailand held talks to jointly fight online gambling and financial fraud in Myawaddy Township.
Most of the young men who were drafted into the military began to take shelter in the liberated areas, go abroad, and work in border towns.