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Podcast: Insight Myanmar
Episode: State of the Scam
Description: Episode #464: Dr. Tun Aung Shwe, a researcher, former public health practitioner, political activist, and National Unity Government representative to Australia discusses Myanmarβs proliferating scam centers, calling them a symptom of a far deeper political and economic system rooted in decades of military rule. He explains that they began as small, family-run operations in northeastern Shan, operating initially on the borderlands, but have expanded rapidly, even into Yangon, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw. Scam centers operate under the protection of the military and its allied militias, continuing a long-standing pattern in which armed patronage and illicit economies sustain military power. ...