Five Myanmar nationals were sentenced to 21 years in prison by the regime’s Mingaladon Township Court in Yangon Region under Sections 38(a) and 44 of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Law after being convicted of the human trafficking of a Belarusian national to an “online scam business” at an undisclosed location in Myanmar on Oct. 1.
Arrest warrants have been issued by the regime court for three other Myanmar nationals and two Tajikistanis for their alleged involvement in the trafficking case of Vera Kravtsova, 26, who was “forced to work at an online scam business and exploited” in Myanmar after she flew from Bangkok to Yangon on Sept. 20, 2025 and lost contact with her family in Belarus on Oct. 4, 2025.
Details on how Myanmar police tracked and apprehended the suspects weren’t reported by regime media.
The Anti-Online Scam Bill was passed into law by Myanmar’s pro-military parliament on July 28. The maximum sentence is capital punishment or life imprisonment for individuals involved in forced labor, torture, and cyber fraud operations.
British and Ukrainian media reported that Kravtsova was forced to carry out “romance scams” in Myanmar before she was killed on an unspecified date, likely in October 2025.
British media Daily Mail reported that Kravtsova’s family were contacted by unknown individuals demanding a ransom of “half a million dollars” before telling them that her body was cremated and her organs were sold.
From May 25 to July 26, regime media reported that the Myanmar military demolished 77 out of 322 illegal buildings within Shwe Kokko, an alleged cyber scam and human trafficking hub along the Myanmar-Thailand border in Karen State’s Myawaddy Township, located 81 miles (130 km) east of the state’s capital Hpa-An.
