4 h. ago Revealed: the huge growth of Myanmar scam centres that may hold 100,000 trafficked people

Operated by crime syndicates and fostered by the country’s military junta, the number of vast complexes such as KK Park on the Thai-Myanmar border has doubled since 2021Five years ago, the land now home to KK Park – a vast, heavily guarded complex stretching for 210 hectares (520 acres) along the churning Moei River that forms Myanmar’s border with Thailand – was little more than empty fields.Set against rugged mountains south of the town of Myawaddy, KK Park, with its on-site hospital, restaurants, bank and neat lines of villas with manicured lawns, looks more like the campus of a Silicon Valley tech company than what is really is: the frontline of a multibillion-dollar criminal fraud industry fuelled by human trafficking and brutal violence. Continue reading...

Politics

11 h. ago Republican slams Vance for ‘despicable’ comments on Venezuelan boat strike

Rand Paul blasts ‘thoughtless’ comment after vice-president defends strike against alleged drug traffickersThe Republican senator who heads the homeland security committee has criticized JD Vance for “despicable” comments apparently in support of extrajudicial military killings.“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” the vice-president said in an X post on Saturday, in defense of Tuesday’s US military strike against a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean Sea, which killed 11 people the administration alleged were drug traffickers. Continue reading...

Politics

11 h. ago Republican condemns Vance for ‘despicable’ comments on Venezuelan boat strike

Rand Paul decries ‘thoughtless’ comment after vice-president defends strike against alleged drug traffickersThe Republican senator who heads the homeland security committee has criticized JD Vance for “despicable” comments apparently in support of extrajudicial military killings.“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” the vice-president said in an X post on Saturday, in defense of Tuesday’s US military strike against a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean Sea, which killed 11 people the administration alleged were drug traffickers. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago ‘I can’t sleep, I can’t get on with my life’: how Europe’s tougher rules are keeping families apart

Tighter family reunification laws are causing long separations, traumatising children, and can push people towards traffickers, campaigners sayStanding outside Germany’s parliament in June, Ahmad Shikh Ali fought back tears as he held up a blurry photo of his three-year-old son. Since fleeing Aleppo more than two years ago, Shikh Ali had done all he could to secure his son a safe future: moving to Hanover, getting full-time employment and wading through endless paperwork so that his wife and son could join him.He was close to reuniting with his family, with just two cases in front of his in the queue. That was, until Germany’s lower house of parliament passed a bill in June to suspend family reunifications for migrants like him for at least two years. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Sex for Sale: Trade in human flesh moved off streets as traffickers made millions promising women new lives

Many women who now advertise sex services online in Scotland are also the victims of ruthless people trafficking gangs

Economics

3 w. ago US sanctions Mexican drug cartel associates accused of scamming elderly Americans

The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on more than a dozen Mexican companies and four people it says worked with a powerful drug trafficking cartel to scam elderly Americans in a multimillion-dollar timeshare fraud

Events