Live footage on Thai media outlet The Reporters showed people disembarking from two double-decker coaches and boarding a Southern China Airlines plane, a scene similar to that witnessed by AFP journalists on Thursday.
It said that the first 50 Chinese nationals boarded a 10.40am local time (3.40am GMT) flight, with the rest expected to depart on five additional flights throughout the day.
A last set of flights is expected to return more Chinese nationals on Saturday.
Many of those freed from scam centres say they were duped into working in them and held against their will, but the Chinese government and state media have described them all as “suspects”.
Chinese police officers are accompanying them on the repatriation flights and a state TV report on Thursday showed the returnees, handcuffed and dressed in brown jumpsuits, being frogmarched off the plane in China with a police officer on each arm.
They had boarded uncuffed, in casual clothes, without any luggage.
The Thai government said Thursday that biometric data would be collected from repatriated Chinese nationals to prevent “future misuse of Thailand as a criminal transit hub”.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra also met with her Laos counterpart on Thursday to discuss joint efforts to combat scam centres along their shared border.
Source: CNA
