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Deep in the densely forested borderlands of war-torn Myanmar, two of our journalists recently visited Shunda Park, an office center that opened for business in 2024 with more than 3,500 workers from nearly 30 nations. Some were there willingly, some had been kidnapped. All were dedicated to the causes of online chicanery and digital scams.
The park was largely abandoned, having been captured and closed by one of the rebel militias that has been fighting the Myanmar military for years. But the militia allowed Hannah Beech, a reporter who covers Asia, and Jes Aznar, a photographer, to document what Hannah called “the inner sanctum of this secretive, highly fortified industry.” They were able to meet some of the scammers as well — some of…
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Deep in the densely forested borderlands of war-torn Myanmar, two of our journalists recently visited Shunda Park, an office center that opened for business in 2024 with more than 3,500 workers from nearly 30 nations. Some were there willingly, some had been kidnapped. All were dedicated to the causes of online chicanery and digital scams.
The park was largely abandoned, having been captured and closed by one of the rebel militias that has been fighting the Myanmar military for years. But the militia allowed Hannah Beech, a reporter who covers Asia, and Jes Aznar, a photographer, to document what Hannah called “the inner sanctum of this secretive, highly fortified industry.” They were able to meet some of the scammers as well — some of whom were trying to return to their home countries, and others who were looking for another gig in the grift economy.
What they saw was amazing, just one of Southeast Asia’s compounds of cyberfraud, an enterprise that took at least $10 billion out of the United States alone in 2024.
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Credit...Jes Aznar for The New York Times
There were huge open-plan work rooms filled with computer monitors, the walls adorned with inspirational, always-be-closing sale slogans: “Keep going,” “Dream chaser,” “Making money matters the most.” Videoconference suites were decorated with (fake) business books and (fake) modern art meant to evoke the boardroom of a successful business concern.
Here were photographs the scammers used to help establish false identities. There were a trio of porta-potty-style boxes that scammers told Hannah were used as punishment chambers, in plain view of the rest of the room. Everywhere were discarded cellphones. “In some buildings, with nearly every step I took,” Hannah wrote, “I crunched on SIM cards, scattered like snow in the tropical heat.”
A Sisyphean loop
Who ran this place? A Chinese transnational crime network — in other words, a gang. The militia doesn’t have the resources to investigate, and no one else has expressed much interest either.
Whoever it was ran the business with brutal efficiency. Hannah spoke with several scammers whose bodies bore scars from beatings or tight shackles. They weren’t paid for their 12-hour shifts. Hannah wrote about that beautifully, tragically: “Life was a Sisyphean loop: sleep, eat, scam, eat, sleep, scam.”
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Thousands of cellphones and photographs used in the scamming business.Credit...Jes Aznar for The New York Times
One told her his job for more than a year was to send “hellos” to social media accounts. If he didn’t receive responses to at least 5 percent of his greetings, he said, he would be punished physically.
The workers came from all over the world: Namibia, Russia, Zimbabwe, Malaysia, France. Some Chinese scammers were paid, Hannah discovered, though often not what they’d been promised.
Under fire
Hannah and Jes traveled to Shunda Park during what was supposed to be a lull in the fighting between the rebel militia, known as the Karen National Liberation Army, and the Myanmar military.
Mark that word, supposed. The thud of mortar rounds and sharp cracks of gunfire provided the soundtrack for their visit. As they worked, shells flew over their heads and landed across the river in neighboring Thailand. The day after they left the compound, a 60-millimeter mortar hit a building where they’d been sheltering, wounding three people, including their guide.
I urge you to read more, and to take in more of Jes’s remarkable photography, here.
Now, let’s see what else is happening in the world.
THE LATEST NEWS
Minneapolis
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In Minneapolis on Thursday.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would let him deploy the military within the U.S., “if the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law.”
A couple said ICE agents used tear gas and stun grenades around them and their six children after they inadvertently wound up at a protest.
Public opinion has turned against ICE. But some Democrats think that calls to abolish the agency will turn off voters and make change harder.
Two Times photographers, David Guttenfelder and Todd Heisler, witnessed agents dragging a woman out of her car. In the video below, they describe the scene. Click to watch.
Video
Inside an ICE Confrontation in Minneapolis
Our visual journalists David Guttenfelder and Todd Heisler describe a dramatic incident in which federal agents dragged a woman out of her car in Minneapolis near where Renee Nicole Good had been killed days before.
Renee Good Shooting
A lawyer for the family of Renee Good, who was killed by an ICE officer, said she was concerned about the agency but was not “following anybody.”
Transcripts of 911 calls related to Good’s shooting reveal chaos and confusion at the scene.
Experts say it is unclear whether she was legally obligated to follow an order to get out of her car.
Iran
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, asked Trump to postpone any attack on Iran, a senior U.S. official said.
Starlink satellite internet systems that activists had smuggled into Iran helped spread information about protests during a communications blackout.
Iran appeared to backpedal on previous threats to execute protesters while continuing to cast some as “terrorists.”
Venezuela
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María Corina MachadoCredit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize during a meeting at the White House. The Nobel Committee says prizes are not transferable, but they have been sold.
Trump continues to back Delcy Rodríguez as Venezuela’s interim leader instead of Machado.
The Coast Guard seized another oil tanker that was trying to evade Trump’s partial blockade on Venezuela’s oil industry.
More International News
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A tent providing electricity and heat in Kyiv, Ukraine.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, causing blackouts for days during a winter freeze.
In a break with the U.S., Canada agreed to lower tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
Deportations
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Mahmoud KhalilCredit...Scott Heins for The New York Times
An appeals court ruling means that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia graduate and pro-Palestinian protester, could be rearrested.
A federal judge in Boston said that he would limit the Trump administration’s ability to deport noncitizen academics.
The Trump administration acknowledged that it mistakenly deported a college student who was flying home for Thanksgiving, but it has not dropped its case against her.
Other Big Stories
Gmail is adding A.I. features that can summarize emails, create to-do lists and streamline writing — but using them requires giving the tool access to your entire inbox.
X is restricting the ability of its A.I. chatbot Grok to generate sexualized images of real people after regulators around the world opened investigations.
IN ONE CHART
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Credit...Note: Does not include presidential libraries. The New York Times
MORNING READS
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Credit...The New York Times
**Free as a bird, for a while: **An emu named Tina escaped from a Florida farm recently. A corporal in the local sheriff’s department gave chase. It did not go well.
**A reasonable question: **A.I. consumes, analyzes and stores vast amounts of information, accelerating scientific research. But could it ever do the research itself?
**Your pick: **The most-clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about a Supreme Court ruling that allows law enforcement officials to enter a home without a warrant in an emergency.
**A jazz singer: **Rebecca Kilgore won acclaim for her fresh takes on pop standards of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. She died at 76.
TODAY’S NUMBER
146.1 million
— That’s how many subscribers Verizon has in the U.S. Many of them were affected by widespread outages in the company’s wireless network on Wednesday. The company has offered a $20 credit for the inconvenience.
SPORTS
**M.L.B.: **Kyle Tucker, this offseason’s top free agent, agreed to a four-year, $240 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
College basketball: Federal prosecutors charged 26 men, including athletes, with participating in a conspiracy to manipulate games.
RECIPE OF THE DAY
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Credit...Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini
Glorious ingredients can be thin on the ground in a January supermarket. But there’ll always be canned staples, blocks of protein and commodity vegetables, and with Yewande Komolafe’s help, you can make those into ambrosia: masala chickpeas with tofu and blistered tomatoes. The spicing gives the beans a warming heartiness, and searing the tomatoes concentrates their flavor beautifully. I don’t know why tearing the tofu instead of cutting it works so perfectly (perhaps the resulting cragginess sops up more flavor?), but I do know it looks great on the plate. Serve over rice, with wedges of lime.
**SHE IS THE CAPTAIN NOW **
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Credit...Erik Tanner for The New York Times
Holly Hunter plays the lead in the new “Star Trek” series, “Starfleet Academy.” Her character is the school’s chancellor, an authoritative space captain who is more than 400 years old. Alexis Soloski, a culture reporter, spoke to her before the show’s premiere last night, and the result is excellent reading. “To put a woman at the helm of such power, it rides on the rails of a different sensibility — the empathy and the listening and the patience and the softness,” she told Alexis. “And that feels inherently female.”
More on culture
In academic circles, professors and students sometimes practice the act of “explication de text.” TL;dr? They read close and spout jargon. Our critic A.O. Scott does something very different. He reads close and shows us things that we may not have seen or considered. And he does it in plain language, with wit. You’ll see. Here he is on Trump’s signature social media sign-off: “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Alicia Keys, the singer whose adolescence forms the basis of the plot of “Hell’s Kitchen,” the Tony-winning Broadway musical, said yesterday that she was ending its run in New York. Keys, who is the lead producer, said her investors would be better served by the show’s North American tour and forthcoming productions in Australia, Germany and South Korea. “This national tour is going crazy,” she told Michael Paulson, who covers theater. “They’re selling out everywhere they’re going.”
**Seth Meyers **wondered if Trump would trade his Diet Cokes for whole milk.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS
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A correction was made on
- Jan. 16, 2026
A chart in yesterday’s newsletter misstated the number of employees at the federal Food and Nutrition Service in November 2024. It was 1,830, not 4,981.
Sam Sifton, the host of The Morning, was previously an assistant managing editor responsible for culture and lifestyle coverage and is the founding editor of New York Times Cooking.
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