An airlift carrying more than 1,000 Chinese nationals who had worked at online scam centers in eastern Myanmar began Thursday, after the rescued workers were taken across the border to Thailand and put on chartered flights to China.

CNN has hired John Liu to be its China business reporter in Hong Kong. He has been at The New York Times since 2021. Previously, he worked as a freelance journalist covering Taiwan and Myanmar, including Myanmar’s 2021 military coup,

China began repatriating 200 of its citizens who worked in cyber fraud operations in Myanmar, the first batch returning from the centers international groups have said are a nexus of human rights abuses and criminal activity.

China will fly home about 200 of its nationals found in scam-running compounds on the Thai-Myanmar border, a Thai security official said on Tuesday, as part of a multinational effort to crack down on illegal online operations run from the region.

Thailand, China and Myanmar have coordinated efforts over the past month to shut down the scam centers that bilked victims around the world out of billions of dollars.

Battered and bruised Chinese workers from online scam centres in Myanmar faced an anxious wait to return home, as Beijing and Thailand finalised plans on Wednesday for their repatriation.

A crackdown on Myanmar’s scam hubs has freed 10,000 workers, but concerns remain over the sustainability of the efforts against powerful crime syndicates.

The scam center victims are mostly from Asian countries including China and India while some others came from East Africa, according to Myanmar’s Ministry of Information.

In recent weeks, authorities from China, Thailand and Myanmar have attempted to dismantle scam centers and illegal online operations on the border

During Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, one of the main topics of discussion was the proliferation of scam centers close to Thailand’s borders in Myanmar,

The regime claims it is working with China to break apart online scam operations near the Chinese border in northern Shan State.

The request is part of a four-point proposal by Chinese Assistant Minister for Public Security Liu Zhongyi on how to deal with scam call centers in Myanmar.