Alastair (Ally) MacBeath

SE Asia Coordinator for @GI_TOC. Researching organised crime and developing resilience in SE Asia. Focussing on the crime-conflict nexus in Myanmar.

[The Observer @ObserverUK]

Kidnapping, torture, shrinking food rations: Rohingya refugees caught in cruel limbo

@Lorcan_Lovett reports: Almost a decade after fleeing genocide in Myanmar, refugees fear marauding gangs in Bangladesh camps
https://t.co/7Zk8GltkGX

[Aaron Connelly @ConnellyAL]

As of this afternoon, Min Aung Hlaing has outlasted all of the ASEAN leaders who summoned him to Jakarta in April 2021—with the lone exception of the Sultan of Brunei, who chaired the meeting.

Vietnamese PM Pham Minh Chinh, only 19 days into the job then, stepped down today.

[Sean Turnell @TurnellSean]

Profoundly positive news for Myanmar’s resistance to its apocalyptically failed military regime

[Lorcan @Lorcan_Lovett]

For those less familiar with #Myanmar, here’s an explainer on who’s fighting, why & what may come next.

Thanks to analysts involved and @AJEnglish for keeping eyes on an overlooked war now getting pulled into global conflict.

https://t.co/NnxAdzHzPk

#whatshappeninginMyanmar

[ABC News @ABC]

A traffic jam in South Africa turned into a showdown as two drivers faced off in a game of rock, paper, scissors. https://t.co/po3y84GESx

[David Nott Foundation @NottFoundation]

Last month our Co-Founder Professor David Nott, Dr Tom Avery and anaesthetist Dr Ian Nesbitt carried out a covert surgical mission to Myanmar to operate and to train doctors in one of the world’s most deadly conflicts.

Their mission sits at the heart of what we do: to share knowledge with frontline doctors, equipping them with the confidence and skills to save more lives.

“We were smuggled over the border and back, we travelled up river on narrow boats, on the back of a truck in dense jungle to the jungle hospital. On the way to the jungle hospital we were attacked by drones, we got bombed. We stayed safe a ditch.” Dr Ian Nesbitt.

[Saksith Saiyasombut | ศักดิ์สิทธิ์ ไสยสมบัติ @SaksithCNA]

#BREAKING: National Anti-Corruption Commission finds 44 ex-@MFPThai MPs, incl. the current @PPLEThai leaders, to be at fault for their lèse majesté reform pledge in the '23 campaign, will petition Supreme Court to take on case, which could result in a lifetime political ban.

[Thomas van Linge @ThomasVLinge]

Myanmar 🇲🇲 MAP UPDATE: the situation in Myanmar as of 01/02/2026

Exactly 5 years after the coup, the country remains deeply divided. Junta forces have managed to hold on to the major cities and main roads but resistance groups continue to dominate the periphery & border regions

[Mark Farmaner @MarkFarmaner]

When you have the ability to take action which could reduce the ability of the Burmese military to access revenue and arms, and could reduce their ability to commit human rights violations, but decide to make a statement instead.

[Lorcan @Lorcan_Lovett]

Met a regime troop in a #Myanmar jail who walked us through his journey from conscript to PoW after his comrades staged a yaba-fueled last stand.

His story captures much that’s unraveled there.
📸 @MongelliValeria @ObserverUK

https://t.co/T4GA8SJ27B
#WhatshappeninginMyanmar

[ChinHumanRightsOrg @ChinHumanRights]

@ChinHumanRights (CHRO) is proud to have contributed in a small way to this critical Reuters investigation by providing ground-level documentation and evidence to help expose the lethal supply chains fueling the Myanmar military’s air strikes. https://t.co/fPpvByDzlB

[Asia Times @asiatimesonline]

#Myanmar’s fate in 2026 will be decided by war, not junta elections. A resurgent #Tatmadaw is pushing offensives, while resistance forces must coordinate and escalate or risk stalemate and marginalization. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

https://t.co/GLya7UKljW

[Huang Yan @pelops_huang]

After years of being untouchable in Cambodia, Cambodia’s most powerful scam boss, Chen Zhi of the Prince Group, has finally been arrested. Read our investigative report on his rise, empire, and eventual capture. 📰👇

https://t.co/DMHskR4snE

[Tom Wright @TomWrightAsia]

It’s getting harder for scammers in 2026.

This man, Chen Zhi, who controlled billion-dollar scam compounds in Cambodia, has been arrested and extradited to China.

This is the face behind those annoying scam calls you get shilling fake investments and romance. Yet for years, Chen was able to live and operate in Cambodia, a mafia state. What changed?

In October, Chen was indicted by the U.S. He became too embarrassing for China and Cambodia. But instead of facing justice in the U.S., where his operations scammed millions of victims, he’s going back home to China. His trial will occur behind closed doors.

As this arrest and extradition show, Beijing has the influence in Cambodia — a client state — to clamp down on Chinese mafia syndicates that run these criminal businesses. Another notorious Chinese scam center operator was extradited from Thailand to China late last year.

Now I’m waiting to see what happens to Benjamin Mauerberger, a South African money launderer who moved billions of dollars in scam center proceeds, and his Chinese partners in Cambodia.

The focus of a Homeland Security investigation, Mauerberger is on the run in Dubai after his assets were seized in Thailand late last year.

[Mark Farmaner @MarkFarmaner]

The military as an institution is the problem in Burma/Myanmar, not whoever happens to be in charge of the military. Removing Min Aung Hlaing would not bring change to Myanmar. Removing the military would.

[Ben Pershing @benpershing]

2025 was a terrible year for the ‘Four Families’ accused of running global cyber scam operations https://t.co/jydKGLSYLZ

[Alastair (Ally) MacBeath @ARMacBeath]

The launching of a military operation to apprehend a head of state must have been one of the more extreme options presented to Trump. Teheran must be nervous, certainly following Trump’s threat to intervene in the protests in Iran.

[Dr Peter Caddick-Adams #StandwithUkraine @militaryhistori]

Apparently this is already a done deal, and Trump has cooked Maduro's goose.
I worry what an emboldened president will do next.

[Josh Sheehan 🇲🇲 🪷🌳 @sheehanj920]

Tried writing something counter to the cascade of similar coverage of the 🇲🇲 regime’s “elections”, instead looking at how “interim federal units” formed in Anyar in only months & how it indicates wide collaboration & solidarity in the “Spring Revolution”.

https://t.co/gCSwWmxZkt

[Tom Wright @TomWrightAsia]

You can't understand the ongoing Cambodia--Thailand hostilities without considering the extent that Chinese-Cambodian dirty money has corrupted Thailand's ruling class.

Why has Thailand's military made a point of attacking scam centers as part of this latest round of fighting? Thailand's elite is desperately trying to distance itself from the scam industry that targets Americans, even as it has benefited from these enormous illict revenues since Covid.

On Dec. 2, Thailand's police seized $300 million in assets connected to Benjamin Mauerberger, a South African money launderer who used billions of dollars in Cambodian scam proceeds to infiltrate Thailand's governing class.

In a statement, Thailand's police said Mauerberger only succeeded because of political protection from Cambodia's leadership. No mention of his protection from every level of Thailand's elite: Prime Ministers, police generals, bureaucrats.

Mauerberger has fled to Dubai, where many elite Thais are hoping he stays. He is under investigation, but has not been indicted.

Perhaps Thailand hopes the attacks on scam centers in Cambodia shifts the blame overseas. But there has yet to be a reckoning in Thailand over the deep corruption caused by scam center cash.

[Myanmar Now @Myanmar_Now_Eng]

A career in the criminal industry of online fraud—known locally as “Kyar Phyant”—has become an alluring option for many of Myanmar’s young people, who say they were not coerced into it but voluntarily sought it out for the potential income

Read more:
https://t.co/XPC5w8vWWc