Authorities intensify efforts to dismantle cyber-scam centers as they spread worldwide

A 2026 UN report calls cyber-scam operations in Southeast Asia a human rights crisis as approximately 300,000 are forced into criminality in the region. The CEO of anti-human trafficking group, the Mekong Club, details the dire working conditions for people in scam centers and what governments have done — and still need to do — to shut down operations now proliferating beyond Asia.

He thought he’d landed his dream job. The young Taiwanese professional first learned about the casino position in Cambodia from an ad on Facebook. It promised a chance of a lifetime: $3,000 a month — pay unimaginable to him in Taiwan — and he readily accepted the offer after a brief interview with casino staff. “I felt lucky and believed I’d never find a job like that back in Taiwan,” he recalled to me during a January 2025 phone interview.

But the reality of the job came into sharp relief when he arrived in Cambodia. He was met by a group of men who transported him by van through a rural part of Cambodia and to a building surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. It looked like a prison. 

Each day, he sat in front of a computer, typing as fast as possible to defraud people. He did this for more than 14 hours a day. “I felt guilty with every message I sent. These were regular people, just like me, who deserved kindness, not lies.” He recounted how fear kept him in line. If he didn’t contact the requisite number of potential victims, he’d face punishment. He’d heard stories about people who failed to meet their targets being dragged away to a room and tortured, while everyone could hear the victims’ painful screams.  

He remembers the day he managed to email his family and how his heart pounded with fear that his overseers would learn he’d gotten a message to them. When the operators found out, they beat him. But then his overseers made a shocking decision. They agreed to let him go in exchange for a $30,000 ransom paid by his family. Fortunately, the young man’s family arranged the resources to meet the criminals’ demands, and he was set free. 

The young man’s experience in Cambodia is representative of many people who’ve come from all over Asia with the promise of a good, high-paying job, only to be forced to commit online fraud for an organized criminal network. 

In 2023, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) issued a staggering report that an estimated 200,000 people had been recruited and forced to commit cyberfraud in large, industrial-like operations in Southeast Asian countries. The UN estimated these scam-center operations managed by transnational organized crime groups had stolen billions of dollars from victims worldwide, often through “pig butchering” investment schemes involving cryptocurrency. 

Since that report, international law enforcement agencies and governments have attempted to shut down cyber-scam operations with enforcement actions, task forces, sanctions, and heavy punishments such as the death penalty for center operators. But the UN’s latest report, published in February 2026, shows that cyberfraud operations have grown, representing a massive human rights crisis with an estimated 300,000 people living in forced criminality. Cyber-scam centers can now be found in other regions of the globe, and criminal networks have supercharged their schemes by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into their operations for language translation and targeting more victims than ever before. The industry is worth more than $43 billion just in Southeast Asia; profits from these operations are laundered through bank accounts via money mules and converted into cryptocurrency.  

In this article, I detail how criminal networks entrap people and force them to commit fraud, major actions taken by governments, law enforcement and technology companies to curtail these operations, and the challenges associated with shutting them down. 

A ‘wicked’ global problem

The UN’s February 2026 report refers to Southeast Asian cyber-scam operations as a “wicked problem,” requiring a human-rights response. Forced-criminality victims come from all over Asia, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, but the UN’s latest report indicates that criminal organizations have expanded beyond Asia, and their “workforce” now includes people from 66 countries across the globe. 
  
Satellite images indicate that most of these cyber-scam centers — 74% of them — are located along the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia in Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. In 2025, human rights organization Amnesty International identified 53 online scam centers in Cambodia alone. However, it’s difficult to determine how many of these scam centers are currently in operation; the UN estimated there were more than 300 scam centers operating in Southeast Asia as of 2021, but as law enforcement shuts down one operation, criminals will replace it with another elsewhere. Compounding the problem is that not all operations are industrial in scale; many operations are small and easy to move. Some operate out of apartments, homes or hotels, allowing criminals to relocate quickly when necessary. They often rent office space next to legitimate call centers to mask operations. Criminals may also run these operations out of prisons or detention centers, with captive, built-in workforces to exploit. While Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos are main destinations for victims of forced criminality, criminal networks have expanded operations into other regions, such as the Middle East and West Africa, Eastern Europe and Central America.

 

Two types of victims

Cyber-scam centers in Southeast Asia grew out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, casinos and resorts, often run by Chinese criminal organizations, became popular destinations for Chinese citizens. But travel restrictions and social distancing guidelines forced casinos to shut down; criminal networks recalibrated and turned those casinos and resorts into cyberfraud operations instead.  

The pandemic also significantly worsened an already difficult job market in Asia. Young, educated professionals were most affected, making them especially susceptible to fraudulent job offers by criminal networks looking to populate cyber-scam centers with workers. The UN’s 2026 report indicates that 47% of cyber-scam trafficking survivors were unemployed or underemployed when they were recruited. 

Criminals use promises of high-paying jobs in customer service, accounting, modeling and data analysis to lure young people to work long hours, defrauding other people out of their life savings, creating two different groups of victims. The first group consists of people who’ve been trafficked and forced to perpetrate frauds. The second group comprises people across the globe who’ve been targeted and deceived into investing and losing their life savings to cyber criminals. According to the UN, these operations have netted approximately $64 billion globally from victims. The Global Anti-Scam Alliance estimates that victims worldwide lost $442 billion to scammers in 2025.

In the following sections, I describe how criminal networks recruit people for their operations and the abusive conditions people must endure as they carry out cyberfraud schemes on behalf of these networks.

Inside cyber-scam operations 

Step one: Recruitment

Like the young Taiwanese professional’s experience, criminal networks promise job seekers high salaries and favorable working conditions in fake job advertisements, often requiring little to no experience. In some cases, individuals apply with legitimate job agencies and secure real jobs, only later to receive fraudulent offers. Criminals place these ads on social media sites to reach potential victims. While social media companies such as Meta have started removing fraudulent ads, criminal groups circumvent these changes by posting job openings in online forums and local community sites with minimal moderation. 

Criminals often use legitimate companies in their ads, fabricating websites and forging logos. However, if you take a closer look, you might see a contact email with a generic Gmail or Yahoo address. Additionally, job postings may be accompanied by unrelated online ads. 

Advertised positions span various industries, but they often target white-collar or skilled roles, especially in technology and customer-facing fields, designed to attract job seekers with digital proficiency and language skills, particularly English or Mandarin. Criminals are increasingly using artificial intelligence to identify and target individuals experiencing financial stress or job insecurity to recruit them into scam operations.

Networks often employ young, attractive men and women to connect with potential job applicants on social media platforms and chat rooms. They build casual online friendships by discussing their plans to take a specific job and encourage others to do the same. Recently, criminals have shifted recruitment methods to include face-to-face encounters. Brokers and recruiters operate globally. According to the UN’s 2026 report, criminals rely on trust, as almost three-quarters of forced criminality victims say they were recruited for jobs by friends, family or community acquaintances. A Bangladeshi survivor quoted in the UN report said a friend recruited him and said that if he took the job, “I would be able to provide the support that my disabled father needed.” Criminal networks pay people to recruit others into scam centers. In some African countries, recruiters may earn up to $3,000 for each successful recruitment — a considerable incentive for people living in regions with limited job options.

Once a potential victim responds to the job offer, criminals simulate formal interviews, giving the recruitment process a seal of legitimacy. Job seekers may take online tests and go through multiple Zoom interviews with seemingly real supervisors, human resources managers and recruiters. Victims are sent to fake but convincing company websites complete with GPS locations to conduct research on companies without suspicion. [See “Red flags of human trafficking for cyber-scam centers” at the end of this article.]

Step two: Transporting victims to scam centers

After individuals accept a job offer, they’re transported to their work destinations by traffickers who supply fabricated essential travel documents, including job contracts, invitation letters and counterfeit visas. Operators organize travel by air or sea, managing everything from passport processing and flight bookings. During immigration checks, victims present fake travel documents and follow instructions provided by criminal facilitators.

Victims are routed through countries with lenient visa regulations, where they’re picked up and taken to scam sites. 

Victims don’t suspect anything at first. They sign legitimate-looking contracts and receive plane tickets and detailed instructions for their arrival. They’re greeted by name at airports by drivers with signs, giving them a false sense of security. But then, they’ll notice they’ve been driving for several hours down dark, unfamiliar roads. Along the way, transporters will downplay concerns with elaborate reassurances. Victims realize they’ve lost control when they’re deposited by a riverbank, greeted by armed soldiers. This chilling experience marks the moment they understand something has gone terribly wrong, leaving them trapped in a foreign country, unable to seek help. [See “Red flags of human trafficking for cyber-scam centers” at the end of this article.]

Step three: Arrival 

Scam compounds are containment sites where criminal networks exert tight control over human trafficking victims. Large operations are often in multistory commercial buildings within closed-off compounds. Survivors have described vast complexes spanning hundreds of acres. Many of these centers developed from casinos and resorts located in special economic zones designated to attract business investment with few regulations, where illegal activities were already thriving. 

Upon arrival, trafficking victims may see high walls, barbed wire, closed-circuit cameras, barred windows, locked doors, and in some cases, armed guards, to keep victims in and law enforcement out. In many respects, they resemble prisons. During an initial orientation, people’s passports and personal documents are confiscated. They’re cut off from communication with family and friends, intensifying isolation and fear. 

Scam-center operators make intentions clear immediately: People are there to scam others. If a person refuses, they’re threatened with punishment until they comply. Traffickers might torture another person in front of a new arrival to exert control and establish that if they don’t comply, they’ll meet the same fate. In some cases, they show videos on their phones of people being tortured. Those who continue to resist are tasered or beaten until they submit. 

People are also under constant surveillance by scam-center staff, who monitor victims’ every move. Continued threats of violence against victims ensure their compliance with scam operations. Those who manage to escape describe physical, emotional and sexual violence and abuse as routine. Victims are kept in a constant state of fear, confusion and hopelessness, living under the ongoing threat of violence.

People often work up to 19 hours a day; they sleep in crowded, poorly lit, damp rooms with little privacy and constant monitoring to prevent escape. Meals are often unappetizing and lack nutritional value. A survivor of one compound said operators denied workers food for more than two weeks.

 

Step Four: Forced criminality

Many scam centers resemble legitimate call centers, with rows of desks and cubicles designed for high-volume operations. Workers are equipped with headsets to engage with potential scam victims. Centers bustle with activity like other highly professionalized, efficient organizations but with one distinction: They operate to deceive and exploit people rather than provide services or support. The laptops, mobile phones and SIM cards workers use to carry out scams are closely monitored to prevent outside communication and escape attempts. 

Criminal organizations produce manuals to guide victims through gathering information on potential targets, contacting them, building rapport and developing relationships with victims to convince them to participate in fraudulent investment schemes. Like part of a sales team, people who’ve been trafficked to commit fraud have performance goals to meet. Unlike sales teams, missing goals means physical punishment. One survivor recounted in the UN report that workers had to make “300,000 Thai baht [$9,500USD] every day by scamming people in order to avoid punishment or being sold to another company.” And, even if they do meet their targets, compensation is minimal or nonexistent. Salaries may be withheld or reduced through fines for perceived poor performance.

Forced scam-center workers receive scripts directing them on their personas to impersonate romantic partners or financial advisers. Scripts are coordinated across all platforms they use (e.g., social media sites, messaging services like WhatsApp and Telegram) so that everyone involved uses identical narratives. Once a worker establishes rapport with a potential victim, they’re expected to push for face-to-face meetings. Scam centers use models for these meetings, who participate in brief video calls while following a scripted act. AI now enables them to use video fakes of people instead of models.

Encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp play an important role in workers developing relationships with fraud victims. Workers are expected to stick to their scripted personas to impersonate romantic partners or financial advisers in long-running schemes. Many of them are pig butchering schemes in which fraudsters develop romantic relationships to lure victims into fraudulent cryptocurrency investments until the victim has nothing left to give. The fraudster “fattens” the victim up with a seemingly trustworthy and loving relationship, before they “slaughter” the victim by taking their life savings and disappearing.

In a January 2026 article, The New York Times reported gaining access to Shunda Park, a scam center in Myanmar captured by rebel fighters in the country’s ongoing civil war. There, reporters saw firsthand the materials workers use to scam victims, including online chats, training manuals, scripts and video-call rooms with fake backdrops for meeting fraud victims. More than 3,500 people were captive at Shunda, working with instructions such as targeting “women in China over 30, but for women in Taiwan, try 40 and older.” Guides instruct workers on managing relationships with victims and how to coach victims on making large withdrawals from banks without raising tellers’ suspicions.

Escape doesn’t equal freedom for many trafficked into scam centers. In the aftermath of a law enforcement raid on a compound, workers often face jail, criminal charges and prosecution. And when they’re free to go home, workers lack access to victim resources to help deal with trauma. The UN stresses in its 2026 report that scam-center workers are victims and shouldn’t be punished by law enforcement agencies.   

Shutting down cyber-scam centers

The UN’s reports on human-trafficking for cyberfraud, multiple media reports and insider accounts of life inside scam centers call attention to the plight of cyber-scam workers — and to the multitudes of fraud victims who’ve lost their livelihoods to these operations. Governments are now dedicating resources to fighting scam centers, with coordinated law enforcement raids of compounds and arrests of criminal operators, economic sanctions against individuals and businesses connected to scam-center operations, and other programs, such as the U.S. government’s Scam Center Strike Force. 

Authorities have targeted notorious scam compounds, including KK Park, a massive complex in Myanmar near the border of Thailand. In October 2025, the Myanmar military said it raided the scam compound and shut down operations there. In March 2024, authorities in the Philippines raided a compound where workers posed as employees of China’s National Petroleum Corp. to convince Chinese citizens to invest in fraudulent crude oil futures. 

A major barrier to shutting down scam centers is political corruption. Local politicians take bribes in exchange for their silence. In Thailand, a thoroughfare for scam-center trafficking, immigration and law enforcement officials have accepted bribes at borders and airports, allowing traffickers to bypass visas and other document requirements to funnel victims into scam centers. The country established the Anti-Online Scam Operation Center (AOC 1441) in 2023 to serve as a repository for citizens to report scams and request account suspensions. The center collaborates with the Bank of Thailand and the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission to target money laundering mule accounts and control excessive SIM card usage.

Cambodia is a major hub for scam centers, with operations generating more than $12 billion a year — half the country’s GDP. The 2025 U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report indicates that senior officials and business leaders are involved in scam operations there. But international sanctions and new laws targeting scam centers show signs of progress. In 2025, the U.S. government charged Chen Zhi, an adviser to several prime ministers in Cambodia, with wire fraud and money laundering. Chen, head of the Prince Group, one of Cambodia’s largest corporations, is accused of leading an internet scam operation that stole more than $15 billion in bitcoin. The U.S. and U.K. governments also sanctioned the Prince Group. In 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned the O’Smach Resort in Cambodia and its owner, Ly Yong Phat, for human rights abuses against trafficked workers. Ly was a Cambodian senator. In May 2025, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) identified the Huione Group, a financial institution based in Cambodia, as a major money laundering conduit for online scam operations.

Cambodia has responded to international pressure, claiming that it’s taken strides against scam centers within its borders. In March 2026, authorities announced they’d cut activity in scam compounds by half, and Prime Minister Hun Manet introduced a new law targeting property owners, landlords, building lessors and recruiters to fine them for having links to scam operations. 

China has been key to intensifying efforts against operations. Many of these operations are linked to Chinese organized crime and many of their victims — trafficking victims and cyberfraud victims — have been Chinese citizens. The Chinese government has pressured law enforcement agencies in the region to coordinate raids on scam centers, leading to arrests and disruptions to scam operations. China has also sentenced crime bosses to death for their roles in running cyber-scam compounds in Myanmar.  

While international experts have lauded China’s efforts, its success has had unintended consequences. Losses from online scams in China decreased by 30% in 2024, but losses in the U.S. increased by about 40%. China’s public awareness campaigns against targeting fellow citizens for online scams may have signaled criminal networks to shift their scamming efforts to U.S. citizens, underscoring the complexity in tackling these operations and the sophisticated methods traffickers employ to impede law enforcement. Criminals continually adapt and develop new tactics, and use of AI to create even more elaborate and believable schemes makes it difficult for authorities to keep pace. The UNODC notes that scam centers are expanding their worker pools beyond Chinese nationals to include people from a broad array of countries. The cat-and-mouse dynamic that’s developed between criminals and the law highlights the importance of better technology training and awareness of cyber scams for law enforcement agents. 

International and regional cooperation is crucial, and it will take more than a single country to extinguish scam compounds and the trafficking that supplies workers. The UNODC has collaborated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China to devise a strategic plan, emphasizing preventive measures, identifying and protecting victims and enhancing law enforcement’s investigative capabilities. By uniting their efforts, these nations aim for a more effective and comprehensive response. Another critical element of these regional efforts is intelligence sharing. Strengthening threat intelligence and data sharing among countries helps law enforcement understand criminal tactics. The ASEAN Anti-Scam Working Group coordinates responses and formulates policy guidelines to enhance nations’ efforts.

Social media and other digital platforms are central to scam center operations, from recruiting people to perpetrate schemes to targeting victims of schemes. Technology companies are pivotal in international efforts to combat cyber-scam centers. In 2026, Meta, owner of Facebook, announced in March 2026 that it disabled more than 150,000 accounts tied to Southeast Asia-based cyber scam centers, assisted the Royal Thai Police in its crackdown on scam operations and shared data about suspicious activity tied to scam networks. 

Meta also announced new safety features across its platforms, including Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp, that it says will help its users spot scams. For example, Facebook users will get alerts if a new friend request is suspicious, and WhatsApp will warn users if a link or device-linking request is suspicious or is attempting an account takeover. Much criticism has been directed at Meta for profiting from fraudulent advertising over the years, and many of those fake ads have connections to cyber-scam operations. 

Perhaps the most critical factor in combating scam operations lies in reaching people like the young Taiwanese professional who are vulnerable to human trafficking for cyberfraud to cut off the supply of workers for these operations. In the UN’s latest report, 79% of survivors interviewed say they didn’t know about trafficking for scamming purposes. Many people, both in the affected countries and beyond, are oblivious to the extent and severity of the problem. When victims are trafficked into scam centers, they’re isolated and cut off from their communities, making it difficult for family and friends to recognize the signs of trafficking. Awareness is also crucial for people living in the communities that play host to cyber-scam centers. People may not realize that scam centers operate in their communities or understand the extent of what’s happening behind the high walls and barbed wire that surrounds these compounds as people are forced to commit fraud on behalf of organized crime.  

Matt Friedman is the CEO of the Mekong Club, based in Hong Kong. Contact him at matt.friedman@themekongclub.org.

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Red flags of human trafficking for cyber-scam centers

Fraudulent job listing red flags

• The job offer is too good to be true: Offers that promise high salaries, free travel, luxury accommodations or visa support for entry-level positions, such as data entry and customer service, without requiring prior experience are signs the job could be a scam.
• Recruitment is conducted on social media and informal channels: Job offers conducted only on social media platforms or other informal channels instead of official company websites or vetted recruitment agencies are signs the job may be illegitimate. The job offers may lack verifiable contact information.
• The formality is fake: Scammers frequently imitate legitimate hiring processes by conducting virtual interviews, issuing professionally crafted contracts and providing documents that appear official. But a closer look will reveal nonexistent or barebones websites, unverifiable business registrations and human resources personnel who don’t exist or can’t be contacted.
• Recruiters use pressure tactics: Recruiters often pressure victims to make quick decisions by emphasizing that positions are limited or that any delay in accepting an offer could cost them an opportunity. Urgency tactics aim to bypass people’s critical thinking and prevent thorough background checks.

Trafficking red flags

• Travel documents appear suspicious or inconsistent: Passports, visas, and supporting documents (such as invitation letters or work permits) may be forged, newly issued with limited history, or unverifiable in consular or immigration databases.
• Victims show lack of autonomy: Travelers may be instructed to provide rehearsed responses to immigration staff. If a facilitator is present, the victim is often told to remain silent while the facilitator speaks on their behalf.
• Complex travel routes through visa-lenient transit hubs: Victims are often funneled through intermediate countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, or the Philippines, where immigration controls are less strict. Different facilitators may be involved at each stage of the journey to conceal victims’ destinations and avoid detection by authorities.
• One-way flights to scam center hotspots: Victims travel on one-way flights to countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos or Thailand, regions known for hosting scam compounds, without clear return plans.
• Third-party payment and booking of travel: Flights and sea travel are frequently booked and paid for by unrelated individuals or entities such as fake recruiting companies, shell companies or corrupt travel agencies, often with limited transparency about the sponsor’s identity.
• Group travel with uniform documentation: Groups of travelers arrive with identical paperwork, such as work permits or invitation letters, suggesting mass recruitment or coordinated trafficking operations.