Checkpoints, conflict and scam logistics: Mobile control and the politics of circulation in the China-Myanmar-Thailand borderlands
Roadblocks & Revenues Working Paper Series #13
This paper by Xu Peng examines how checkpoints shape online scam economies in the China-Myanmar-Thailand borderlands. Comparing Kokang and Myawaddy, it argues that scam centres are not only digital criminal operations, but territorial economies dependent on the controlled movement of workers, supplies, capital, and returnees. The paper shows that anti-scam enforcement has different effects depending on who controls key passage points.
This paper is the 13th in a working paper series on Roadblocks and Revenues, a collaboration between the Danish Institute for International Studies, the International Centre for Tax and Development and the Centre on Armed Groups.
