Thailand's low-key deportations to China latest scamdemic twist

BANGKOK -- Thailand's biggest-known deportation in well over a decade has thrust the kingdom into China's stepped-up war on cybercrime, and observers say it could signal a major shift in Southeast Asia's rampant scamming and human trafficking industries away from conflict-torn Myanmar.

Over three days from Feb. 29 -- a leap day in a region obsessed by numerology -- nearly 1,000 Chinese nationals were transported in white tour buses across the Moei River, not far north of the Thai town of Mae Sot on the Myanmar border. Myanmar Now, a Burmese news portal, put the exact figure at 997.