SpaceX Disables Over 2,500 Starlink Devices Being Used By Myanmar Scam Centres

SpaceX has disabled more than 2,500 Starlink devices that were being used by cyber scam syndicates in Myanmar, the company said in a statement.

“On the rare occasion we identify a violation, we take appropriate action, including working with law enforcement agencies around the world,” said Lauren Dreyer, SpaceX’s vice president of business operations for Starlink, in a post on X.

“In Myanmar, for example, SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers’,” Dreyer said.

The company, however, did not say when were the consoles disabled.

This comes after the junta government said it has discovered 30 sets of Starlink “receivers and accessories” during a raid on one such scam compound this

week.

According to a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, there are about 30 sprawling, purpose-built compounds along the Myanmar-Thai border for the scamming victims, including Americans.

CNN reported that the workers in the scam centres are often lured by the promise of well-paid jobs, or trafficked, and are routinely held against their will and forced to carry out online fraud schemes in the heavily guarded compounds.

The latest decision by SpaceX comes amid rising concerns in the US that criminal networks in Myanmar were using Starlink to access the internet and carry out their scams.

AFP quoted its investigation revealing that Starlink receivers had been installed on the roofs of the scam compounds at a “huge scale.”

The US Congress Joint Economic Committee has begun an investigation into Starlink’s alleged involvement in the centres, according to the AFP investigation.