Southeast Asia’s Scam-Centre Trafficking Crisis: How Human Trafficking Became the Labour Force of Global Cybercrime

The Southeast Asia scam-centre trafficking crisis has become one of the clearest examples of how modern slavery is changing in the digital age. Across Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and other parts of the region, people are being recruited through fake job offers, moved across borders, confined in guarded compounds and forced to carry out online fraud against victims around the world. UNODC describes this as trafficking in persons for forced criminality, a form of exploitation now closely tied to cybercrime, financial fraud, money-laundering and corruption.

This is not simply a story about scams. It is a story about people trapped between two forms of victimhood: those forced to commit fraud under coercion, and those defrauded by criminal networks using romance, investment and cryptocurrency schemes. It is also a story about weak governance, conflict economies, borderland impunity, digital platforms, artificial intelligence tools, internet infrastructure and the failure of international systems to keep pace with organised crime.

The crisis matters now because new reporting and institutional evidence suggest the industry is adapting rather than disappearing. Reuters reported in June 2026 that more than 5,300 people were still believed to be trapped in online scam centres near Myanmar’s border with Thailand, more than a year after a multinational crackdown freed thousands from the region. At the same time, an AP and FRONTLINE investigation found that American technology, including AI tools, internet service providers and satellite internet, has been used within the digital supply chains that support scam operations in Myanmar, while making clear that it found no evidence the companies themselves were acting illegally.

What This Article Covers

• What scam centres are and why Southeast Asia has become the centre of the crisis.
• How people are recruited, trafficked and forced into cyber-enabled fraud.
• Why this is a human trafficking and modern slavery issue, not only a cybercrime issue.
• How AI tools, cryptocurrency, internet infrastructure and social media are changing the scale of exploitation.
• Who is most at risk and why victims are often misidentified as criminals.
• What governments, law enforcement agencies, UN bodies and civil society groups are doing.
• What still needs to change to protect survivors and disrupt the systems behind the harm.

Key Takeaways

• Southeast Asia’s scam-centre crisis is a major form of human trafficking for forced criminality, where trafficked people are coerced into committing online fraud.
• UNODC’s 2026 World Day Against Trafficking in Persons theme, “Trapped behind the scam,” reflects the scale and urgency of this form of exploitation.
• Victims are commonly recruited through fraudulent job offers, then subjected to document confiscation, confinement, debt bondage, violence and threats.
• INTERPOL says human trafficking-fuelled scam centres have expanded from a Southeast Asian regional threat into a global crisis, with victims from 66 countries identified as of March 2025.
• Reuters reported in June 2026 that more than 5,300 people may still be trapped in scam centres near Myanmar’s Thai border.
• New evidence suggests that scam operations are using AI, cryptocurrency, social media, private messaging platforms and global internet infrastructure to scale fraud and control workers.
• The central policy failure is that many systems still treat this as a cybercrime issue first, rather than as a trafficking, forced labour and survivor protection crisis.

Why This Story Matters Now

This story matters now because the crisis is evolving faster than the response. In 2026, UNODC placed forced criminality in scam operations at the centre of World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, warning that organised crime groups are trafficking and exploiting people in industrial-scale financial fraud operations. That framing is significant. It recognises that behind the messages, fake investment platforms and romance scams are often people who have themselves been deceived, transported, confined and coerced.

Recent reporting shows that enforcement actions have not ended the problem. Reuters reported in June 2026 that a rights group estimated more than 5,300 people remained trapped in online scam centres near Myanmar’s border with Thailand. The group said victims were held at four sites in militia-controlled areas, and Reuters noted that Thailand had previously helped pull around 5,000 people from Myawaddy scam hubs.

The AP and FRONTLINE investigation adds another urgent dimension: the role of global technology infrastructure. AP reported that its investigation was based on tens of thousands of leaked files, interviews with 58 scam victims and dozens of current or former scammers from 19 countries, as well as analysis of more than 200,000 device connections from four Myanmar scam compounds linked to US-sanctioned entities. The investigation found that AI tools, internet service providers and satellite internet had been used in the wider digital ecosystem of scam operations, while also stating that it found no evidence the companies involved were acting illegally.

That distinction matters. The issue is not whether every technology company is knowingly enabling exploitation. The issue is whether current safeguards, incentives and enforcement systems are adequate when criminal networks can use legitimate tools for industrialised harm.

The Background

Scam centres are organised compounds or controlled workplaces where people are forced, coerced or pressured into conducting online fraud. The fraud may include romance-investment scams, cryptocurrency scams, impersonation fraud, online gambling schemes, task scams, extortion and other forms of cyber-enabled deception.

The term “pig butchering” is often used to describe one common model of romance-investment fraud. In these schemes, a scammer builds a relationship with a target over time, gains trust, then persuades the person to invest money through a fraudulent platform. The phrase is widely used in law enforcement and cybercrime reporting, but it can be dehumanising. It is more accurate to describe the crime as long-form romance-investment fraud.

The trafficking element begins before the fraud itself. According to OSCE’s 2026 exploratory assessment, victims are recruited through deceptive job advertisements that appear to offer legitimate employment, often with relocation support or above-market pay. Upon arrival, victims may experience confinement, confiscation of documents and violence.

OHCHR has warned since 2023 that hundreds of thousands of people were being forcibly engaged in online criminality in Southeast Asia. UNODC has also described the wider transformation of Southeast Asian organised crime, arguing that cyberfraud, underground banking and illicit online marketplaces have fundamentally reshaped the region’s criminal ecosystem.

The industry’s growth is linked to several overlapping conditions: pandemic-era economic disruption, the shift of some casino-linked economies into online fraud, weak regulation in border zones, corruption, armed conflict, illicit finance, online recruitment and the rapid availability of digital tools that allow criminals to target victims globally.

What Is Happening

The crisis is concentrated in Southeast Asia but no longer confined there. INTERPOL reported in 2025 that human trafficking-fuelled scam centres had expanded globally, with victims from 66 countries trafficked into online scam centres as of March 2025. INTERPOL said 74 percent of identified trafficking victims were brought to centres in the original hub region of Southeast Asia, while scam-centre activity had also been observed in the Middle East, West Africa and Central America.

Inside the compounds, the system is often highly organised. OSCE describes a hierarchy that can include compound owners, political or protection-linked elites, operations managers, supervisors, team leaders and trafficked workers. It also notes that compounds can function as self-contained ecosystems with dormitories, canteens and internal control structures.

The digital side is increasingly sophisticated. AP and FRONTLINE reported that specialised scam software used AI models to generate automated replies, support role-play personas, translate across more than 100 languages and track worker performance. AP also reported that one in five device signals from four Myanmar scam compounds linked to sanctioned entities was routed through US-registered companies, based on analysis of more than 200,000 device connections provided by International Justice Mission.

Scam operations are also resilient. AP reported that at least 25 new scam compounds had appeared or grown in Myanmar after a high-profile crackdown, according to satellite imagery it verified, and that scammers from at least 13 new outposts used Starlink IP addresses between early March and late May. Again, the significance is not that one company alone caused the crisis. The significance is that organised crime groups are able to move, reconnect, rebuild and continue operating even after visible enforcement action.

Cambodia remains another major focus. Amnesty International reported in June 2026 that Cambodia’s crackdown had failed to dismantle the vast majority of scam sites it identified and had not adequately protected people subjected to trafficking, torture and slavery. Amnesty said its research identified an additional 33 scamming compounds and included testimony from 73 survivors from 16 countries. The Cambodian government has rejected Amnesty’s findings and has pointed to enforcement actions, arrests and deportations, according to Reuters.

How This Connects to Human Trafficking, Modern Slavery and Exploitation

The connection to human trafficking is direct. This is not only a workplace abuse issue, and it is not only a cybercrime issue. It involves recruitment, deception, movement, coercion and exploitation for profit.

The process often follows a pattern. A person sees a job advertisement online, sometimes for customer service, sales, translation, hospitality, marketing, gaming, cryptocurrency or administrative work. The offer may promise high pay, accommodation, travel support or visa assistance. After arrival, the person may be transferred through several handlers, taken across a border, brought into a guarded compound, stripped of documents and told they owe a debt. They may then be forced to contact strangers online, build false relationships, persuade targets to invest in fraudulent platforms or participate in other scams.

OSCE’s assessment found that recruitment linked to cyber scam centres follows similar patterns across jurisdictions and is structured to blend into legitimate labour-market infrastructure, meaning risk is often visible only when multiple indicators appear together. That matters for prevention. A single job advert may not look obviously criminal. The danger lies in the combination of unrealistic pay, relocation pressure, private messaging channels, vague employer identity, accommodation control and unclear job duties.

Once inside, exploitation can include forced labour, debt bondage, deprivation of liberty, threats, violence, surveillance, food restriction, sexual exploitation and sale between compounds. OSCE cites lived experience accounts describing 12 to 18-hour days, no regular leave, debt bondage and victims being sold between compounds depending on language skills.

This is also forced criminality. Victims are compelled to commit crimes for the benefit of traffickers. That creates a major protection problem. A person forced to scam others may be treated by authorities as a suspect, immigration offender or cybercriminal rather than as a trafficking victim. IOM has warned that victims of forced criminality are too often arrested for crimes they were made to commit, according to reporting summarising the agency’s position.

The legal and moral distinction is essential. Being forced to participate in fraud does not erase the harm suffered by financial victims. But it does require authorities to recognise coercion, identify trafficking indicators and avoid punishing people for acts committed under threat or control.

How This Connects to Ecocide or Environmental Harm

This is primarily a human trafficking, forced labour and digital exploitation crisis, not a classic ecocide case. There is not enough evidence to describe Southeast Asia’s scam-centre crisis as ecocide in the strict sense of widespread, severe and long-term environmental destruction.

However, there are relevant environmental and organised-crime links. INTERPOL has warned that the same routes used to traffic victims to scam centres can also be used to traffic drugs, firearms and protected wildlife species. It also noted that areas where scam centres have emerged in Southeast Asia are key hubs for the trafficking of endangered species such as tigers and pangolins, making criminal diversification likely.

There is also a broader environmental governance issue. Scam compounds often flourish in borderlands, special economic zones, casino-linked developments and conflict-affected territories where state oversight is weak and illicit economies overlap. The same conditions that allow trafficking and forced criminality can also allow illegal resource extraction, wildlife trafficking, land abuse and corruption. The evidence supports an indirect connection through organised-crime ecosystems, not a direct claim that scam centres themselves constitute ecocide.

For Not For Sale, that distinction matters. Ecocide and modern slavery frequently intersect, but not every trafficking crisis should be forced into an environmental frame. In this case, the strongest evidence points to digital exploitation, forced labour and criminal economies, with environmental harm appearing as a related risk within the wider illicit ecosystem.

Who Is Most at Risk

The people most at risk are not a single demographic. Scam-centre trafficking affects men and women, migrants, jobseekers, students, people with language skills, people with IT skills, people in debt, people seeking overseas work and people displaced by economic or political instability.

Victims have been identified from across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. INTERPOL’s 2025 update stated that victims from 66 countries had been trafficked into online scam centres. Reuters reported that those believed to be trapped near the Myanmar-Thai border included Chinese, Philippine, Taiwanese, Malaysian and Brazilian nationals, among others.

OSCE notes that victims are often young adults with multilingual capacity and may possess university-level education or digital skills. This challenges a common misconception: trafficking victims are not only people with little education or no professional experience. In scam-centre trafficking, skills can increase risk. English ability, technical familiarity, sales experience or comfort using social media can make a person more attractive to recruiters.

Women face specific risks. OSCE’s 2026 assessment identifies gender dimensions in recruitment, including advertisements targeting women through iGaming and hospitality roles, especially where relocation, employer-provided housing or private messaging are involved. Reporting by The Guardian in June 2026 also highlighted serious allegations of gender-based abuse in cyberscam centres, particularly affecting women trafficked through deceptive job offers.

Children may also be affected. Amnesty International’s 2025 report on Cambodia documented forced labour, child labour, deprivation of liberty and slavery in scamming compounds, according to its published summary.

The Systems Behind the Harm

The scam-centre crisis is sustained by systems, not only individual criminals.

The first system is labour-market deception. Recruitment is built to look ordinary. Fake job adverts appear on social media, job boards and messaging platforms. OSCE found that messaging platforms including Facebook, Telegram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Viber are common contact pathways across categories.

The second system is borderland impunity. Scam centres are often located in areas where law enforcement access is limited, where militias or armed groups exert control, or where criminal networks can buy protection. Reuters reported that victims near Myanmar’s Thai border were believed to be confined at sites in militia-controlled areas.

The third system is digital infrastructure. Criminal networks need connectivity, hosting, messaging, translation, payments, identity management and fraud tools. AP and FRONTLINE found that US-linked technology infrastructure formed part of the digital supply chain connecting Myanmar scam compounds to global targets.

The fourth system is illicit finance. Cryptocurrency and underground banking can allow criminal groups to move proceeds quickly across borders. OSCE notes that crypto-enabled scams can move money through legitimate exchanges before funds are transferred to criminal-controlled platforms.

The fifth system is fragmented enforcement. Human trafficking units, cybercrime units, immigration agencies, labour inspectors, financial regulators and technology companies often work in separate lanes. Scam-centre trafficking sits across all of them. When agencies do not share intelligence or apply victim identification standards, survivors can fall through the gaps.

The Human Impact

The human impact is severe and layered. A trafficked person may lose freedom, documents, contact with family, physical safety, income, legal status and trust in institutions. They may also carry the burden of having been forced to harm others financially.

Verified survivor accounts are central to recent reporting. AP described the case of Safeer Mohammed Koorimannil, an Indian man trafficked into a scam operation in Myanmar, who said he impersonated a woman online and communicated with large numbers of people while supervisors monitored workers. AP reported that records he smuggled out showed he targeted people from at least 17 countries in one month.

The financial victims of scams also suffer real harm. AP reported on victims who lost life savings through sophisticated online deception. This dual harm is one reason the crisis is so difficult to explain. The person sending a fraudulent message may be exploited. The person receiving it may also be a victim. Both realities can be true at the same time.

Survivors need more than rescue. They need safe accommodation, legal protection, medical care, trauma-informed support, repatriation where appropriate, documentation, reintegration assistance and protection from retaliation or re-trafficking. Without this, crackdowns can simply move people from one unsafe condition to another.

What Governments and Institutions Are Doing

Governments and institutions are responding, but the evidence suggests the response remains uneven.

UNODC has made forced criminality in scam operations the focus of its 2026 World Day Against Trafficking in Persons campaign. INTERPOL has issued warnings and reported that the trend has globalised beyond Southeast Asia. OSCE has published a 2026 exploratory assessment focused on how trafficking into cyber scam operations affects the OSCE region, including recruitment patterns and prevention indicators.

In the United States, the Department of Justice has created a Scam Center Strike Force focused on Southeast Asian cryptocurrency-related fraud and scams. The DOJ says the Strike Force combines the resources of the US Attorney’s Office with the Department of Justice Criminal Division, FBI and Secret Service. The US State Department also announced sanctions in April 2026 related to online scam centres in Southeast Asia and stated that Americans lost at least $10 billion to scam operations in Southeast Asia in 2024, citing a US government estimate.

Thailand has taken enforcement measures along its borders, including previous efforts to cut electricity, fuel and internet access to scam compounds, according to reporting. Cambodia has announced crackdowns, arrests and enforcement actions, but Amnesty International says the response has failed to dismantle many sites and protect victims adequately. The Cambodian government rejects Amnesty’s findings, according to Reuters.

The picture is therefore mixed. There is more recognition, more enforcement and more international pressure than before. But the business model remains resilient, and many victims remain beyond protection.

What Still Needs to Change

The first change is recognition. Governments must treat scam-centre trafficking as trafficking for forced criminality, not simply as illegal migration or cybercrime. Victim identification must happen before detention, deportation or prosecution.

The second change is survivor protection. Rescue without protection is incomplete. Survivors need legal status, shelter, interpretation, medical care, trauma support, financial help, safe repatriation and reintegration assistance.

The third change is technology accountability. Technology companies should not be blamed without evidence, but they should be expected to assess foreseeable misuse, enforce terms of service, cooperate with lawful investigations and strengthen detection where their services are repeatedly exploited by organised crime.

The fourth change is financial disruption. Scam centres rely on payment channels, cryptocurrency flows, shell companies, underground banking and laundering networks. Enforcement must follow the money, not only raid compounds.

The fifth change is regional cooperation. Trafficking routes, recruitment channels, financial flows and digital infrastructure cross borders. No single government can solve this alone.

The sixth change is public understanding. People need to recognise that an online scam may involve two victims: the person losing money and the person forced to send the messages.

What Not For Sale’s Perspective Adds

Not For Sale’s perspective begins with the recognition that modern slavery adapts. Exploitation is no longer confined to factories, farms, brothels or domestic work. It now operates through phones, encrypted chats, fake job adverts, cryptocurrency platforms, artificial intelligence tools and digital supply chains.

A survivor-centred response must not reduce people to evidence in a cybercrime case. It must ask who recruited them, how they were controlled, what threats were used, what documents were taken, what debts were imposed and what protection they need now. It must also look upstream, at the economic conditions, migration pressures, conflict settings and technology systems that allow exploitation to scale.

The aim is not only to expose harm. It is to out-create it: to build prevention models, strengthen frontline knowledge, support survivor dignity and develop practical alternatives that make exploitation harder to organise and easier to detect.

What Readers Can Do

Readers can help by sharing verified information rather than sensational stories. Scam-centre trafficking is serious enough without exaggeration.

People seeking overseas work should be cautious of job offers that promise unusually high pay, require rapid relocation, avoid formal contracts, move conversations quickly to private messaging apps, provide vague company details or ask applicants to travel through unclear routes.

Families and communities can watch for warning signs: sudden pressure to travel, secretive recruiters, unclear job descriptions, confiscated documents, restricted communication after arrival, requests for ransom or reports that someone is being forced to work online.

Professionals in technology, finance, recruitment, law, journalism and policy can ask stronger questions about misuse. Are platforms detecting recruitment patterns? Are financial institutions spotting scam-linked flows? Are law enforcement agencies screening for trafficking indicators? Are survivors being protected instead of criminalised?

Readers can also support survivor-centred organisations, advocate for stronger victim protection and avoid treating scam victims with shame. Financial victims are often manipulated through careful psychological tactics. Trafficked workers are often acting under coercion. Public stigma only helps perpetrators.

The Southeast Asia scam-centre trafficking crisis is one of the clearest warnings of the digital age: exploitation does not disappear when economies become more technological. It changes form.

A person trapped in a guarded compound and forced to send fraudulent messages is not the image most people have of modern slavery. But that is precisely why this crisis matters. The front line of human trafficking now runs through job adverts, messaging apps, fake investment platforms, satellite internet, AI-assisted scripts and cryptocurrency wallets.

The task ahead is not only to shut down compounds. It is to recognise the people inside them as victims of trafficking, protect those harmed by the scams, disrupt the money and infrastructure behind the industry, and build systems that can respond as quickly as organised crime adapts.

FAQ’s

What is the Southeast Asia scam-centre trafficking crisis?

The Southeast Asia scam-centre trafficking crisis refers to the trafficking of people into guarded compounds where they are forced to carry out online fraud. These operations are concentrated in parts of Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and the wider region, but INTERPOL says the model has now expanded globally.

How are scam centres linked to human trafficking?

Scam centres are linked to human trafficking when people are recruited through deception, transported or transferred, confined, threatened and forced to conduct fraud for someone else’s profit. UNODC describes this as trafficking in persons for forced criminality.

What is forced criminality?

Forced criminality is a form of exploitation in which trafficked people are compelled to commit crimes. In this crisis, victims may be forced to run romance scams, cryptocurrency fraud, fake investment schemes or other cyber-enabled crimes.

Where are the main scam centres located?

Major scam-centre activity has been documented in Southeast Asia, especially in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, with related activity in other countries. INTERPOL says the model has also appeared beyond the region, including in the Middle East, West Africa and Central America.

Who is most at risk of being trafficked into scam centres?

People seeking overseas work, migrants, multilingual workers, young adults, people with IT or sales skills, economically vulnerable jobseekers and people recruited through online platforms can be at risk. Victims have been identified from dozens of countries.

How do traffickers recruit people?

Traffickers often use fake job adverts promising high pay, accommodation, visa help or relocation support. OSCE found that recruitment commonly uses platforms such as Facebook, Telegram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and other messaging channels.

What happens inside scam compounds?

Victims may face confinement, confiscation of documents, surveillance, threats, forced labour, debt bondage and violence. OSCE cites lived experience accounts describing 12 to 18-hour days, no regular leave and debt bondage.

Are the people sending scam messages criminals or victims?

Some may be perpetrators, but many are trafficking victims forced to commit fraud under coercion. Authorities need to screen for trafficking indicators before treating people as criminals or immigration offenders.

How is AI being used in scam-centre operations?

AP and FRONTLINE reported that specialised scam tools used AI models to generate replies, support fake personas, translate across languages and track worker performance.

What are governments doing about the crisis?

UN bodies, INTERPOL, OSCE, the United States, Thailand, Cambodia and others have taken steps including reports, warnings, sanctions, crackdowns and law enforcement operations. However, evidence from Reuters, Amnesty and AP suggests that many operations continue, relocate or rebuild after enforcement action.

Is this connected to ecocide?

This is primarily a trafficking and digital exploitation crisis, not a direct ecocide case. However, INTERPOL has warned that the same routes used to traffic people to scam centres can also be used for drugs, firearms and protected wildlife trafficking, creating a wider organised-crime and environmental-risk context.

What can readers do?

Readers can share verified information, recognise risky job offers, support survivor-centred organisations, ask technology and finance companies how they detect misuse, and avoid blaming people who may have been forced to participate in scams.

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