UN Report Exposes Human Trafficking Behind Southeast Asia Scam Centers

Alleged scam centre workers and victims sit on the ground during a crackdown operation by the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) on illicit activity at the KK Park complex in Myanmar’s eastern Myawaddy township on February 26, 2025. Hundreds of foreigners are being sent home from scam compounds in Myanmar that are run by criminal gangs, with many workers saying they were trafficked and forced to swindle people around the world in protracted internet scams. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

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The United Nations recently issued a report entitled “’A Wicked Problem’ Seeking Human Rights Based Solutions to Trafficking into Cyber Scam Operations in South-East Asia” that highlighted the human rights issues involved with the massive organized international scam operations located in Southeast Asia, primarily in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos where according to the UN’s report at least 300,000 people find themselves forced to participate in worldwide online fraud including romance scams often involving “pig-butchering” where the scammer builds trust over a long period of time before luring the victim into a phony investment scam, most often involving cryptocurrencies; phony cryptocurrency trading platforms; tech support scams; bank impersonation scams; government official impersonation scams; and the myriad of other scams that can be operated by phone, social media, email, or text messages anywhere in the world. The recent UN report indicates that the annual global profit from these scams is $64 billion.

AI MAKING THE PROBLEM WORSE

As the UN report indicates the scams and human trafficking to operate the scams have gotten worse as “there is a wide and growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across scam operations; for generating scripts and multilingual content, identifying scamming targets, producing deepfakes for impersonation purposes, and facilitating money-laundering. Even as scams often necessarily involve direct human interaction with targets, their infrastructure is increasingly driven by automation. Evidence also indicates that criminal actors are deploying AI models to scrape social media platforms in search of individuals who display indicators of financial difficulties or employment-related distress, in order to exploit these vulnerabilities for fraudulent recruitment. Through removing linguistic and cultural barriers, AI enables traffickers to reach a wider pool of potential victims. Experts have noted that recruitment using deception and coercion via digital platforms is likely to be the most common usage of generative AI by traffickers.”

Many of these trafficked scam workers were lured to the scam centers through fake IT and customer service job offers aimed at people who also are experienced in social media platforms and communication channels only to find that upon arriving at the scam centers their passports are taken and they are forced into operating scams as many as 16 hours a day while suffering serious physical and mental abuse.

Despite an occasional high-profile action to close these centers, such as the October 2025 raid by Myanmar military that temporarily shut down the massive KK Park scam compound along the Thailand Myanmar border and the arrest in January of Prince Group scam leader Chen Zhi, efforts to eliminate the scam centers have been largely ineffective. Previously the United States in coordination with UK authorities sanctioned 146 individuals linked to the Prince Holding Group in Cambodia including an indictment of Chen Zhi and the seizure of 127,00 bitcoins valued at $14 billion.

Even actions such as the cutting of electricity to scam hubs in Myanmar by the Thailand Provincial Electricity Authority have been largely ineffectual as the scam centers merely switched to generators. And while the scammers were only temporarily inconvenienced, the legitimate civilian population in the areas suffered more from these actions.

While law enforcement efforts such as the KK Park raid have rescued thousands of people trafficked into operating scams, the scam centers themselves merely relocate and resume operations with the freed workers replaced by a steady stream of new recruits.

The combination of scam centers operating in conflict zones where they operate under the protection of private armies such as the Karen National Army (KNA) and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) coupled with large profits that enable bribery of officials and a massive global labor-trafficking pipeline as well as the ability to relocate when necessary has made these centers difficult to bring to justice.

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE TO SHUT DOWN THESE SCAM CENTERS?

Identifying and freezing the assets of scam groups such as was done with the Prince Holding Group is a good place to start. According to Brian HanleyAsia-Pacific director of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GAZA) a global non-profit organization, “there has been a push towards following the money and putting sanctions and freezing people’s money and we think this has started to make a dent.”

Greater collaboration between countries including Thailand, China, Myanmar, Korea, UK and the United States as well as intelligence sharing is also necessary as well as arrest and extradition of leaders of these scam organizations. Finally, on a human level, greater attention to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of people trafficked into these scams where they are treated brutally should be a primary effort as emphasized in the recent A postponement.