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Scam compounds are not simply remote call centers filled with online fraudsters. In parts of Southeast Asia and beyond, criminal enterprises recruit or traffic people into guarded facilities, force them to run romance, investment, impersonation and cryptocurrency scams, and then move the proceeds through an international laundering system.
That creates a two-sided victim system: workers may be confined and compelled to commit crimes, while people worldwide lose savings to the messages those workers are forced to send. U.S. authorities estimated that Americans lost at least $10 billion in 2024 to Southeast Asia-based scam operations. That estimate is not the same as total global scam revenue or the losses reported in the FBI’s internet-crime statistics.
What scam compounds are
A scam compound is a controlled site where organized criminals run fraud at scale. Compounds have operated in repurposed hotels, casinos, office buildings, gated developments, border-zone facilities and special economic areas. Important reported hubs include parts of Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines, although the model has spread beyond Southeast Asia.
From the outside, a compound may look like a business or property development. Inside, workers can face security guards, restricted movement, surveillance, confiscated passports, debt coercion and violence. The facility supplies the management, scripts, accounts, technical systems, target lists and payment channels that allow social engineering to operate more like an industry than an individual con.
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UN Human Rights has documented the connection between online fraud, trafficking and forced criminality in Southeast Asia. The UN’s recommendations on online scam operations describe the human-rights risks behind the business model.
How people are recruited and trapped
- Fake job advertisement: A recruiter offers well-paid work abroad in customer service, technology, sales, finance, online marketing or gaming.
- Travel arranged: The recruiter or an intermediary organizes transportation to another country or border region.
- Control begins: After arrival, the worker may have a passport, phone or other identity documents taken away.
- Transfer to a compound: The person may be moved to a guarded site, sometimes after being told the job location has changed.
- Fraud assignment: Supervisors provide scripts, accounts, targets and quotas. Workers may be required to impersonate investors, romantic partners, bank employees or officials.
- Punishment for resistance: Refusal, missed quotas or escape attempts can lead to fines, beatings, confinement, sexual violence, threats against relatives or other abuse.
The pathway is not identical for everyone. Some people knowingly accept questionable online work but do not know they will be imprisoned or forced to defraud others. Others are trafficked from the start. A person can also enter voluntarily and later become a trafficking victim through confinement, debt bondage, violence or coercion.
That distinction matters. INTERPOL has warned that scam-center populations include both trafficked people and other participants. It is inaccurate to label every worker a trafficking victim without evidence, just as it is wrong to assume that every person sending scam messages is a willing organizer.
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Traditional forced labor may involve compelled work in a factory, farm or household. Scam compounds add a difficult layer: people may be forced to commit crimes. Their assigned work can include romance fraud, fake cryptocurrency investments, impersonation, phishing, sextortion, money-mule activity and transfers designed to launder stolen funds.
A rescued worker may therefore initially look like a perpetrator because that person was the visible sender of fraudulent messages. A human-rights-based response must examine the surrounding evidence: confinement, threats, withheld documents, debt, violence, working conditions and the person’s ability to leave.
The UN Human Rights framework emphasizes the non-punishment principle. In practical terms, people should not automatically be prosecuted for offenses they committed as a direct consequence of trafficking. That does not erase the need to investigate serious crimes or distinguish organizers from victims; it means coercion must be identified before authorities decide how a rescued worker should be treated.
The scam playbook
Romance-investment scams
In a romance-investment or “pig-butchering” scheme, a fraudster builds trust through a dating app, social network or messaging service. The relationship may continue for days or weeks. Once the target feels emotionally connected, the fraudster introduces an investment opportunity and directs the person to a fake trading platform.
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The victim may see a fabricated account balance and apparent profits. When the victim tries to withdraw money, the criminals demand additional taxes, fees or deposits. The displayed profits were never real.
Cryptocurrency-investment fraud
The target is persuaded to buy or transfer cryptocurrency to a wallet or platform controlled by the network. The website or app may imitate a legitimate exchange or trading service. Cryptocurrency is important to these operations, but it is not the entire payment system. Criminals also use banks, payment processors, cash, gift cards, cryptocurrency kiosks, gambling platforms and money mules.
Impersonation
Workers may pose as bank investigators, police officers, tax officials, immigration authorities, technical-support representatives or other government employees. The goal is usually urgency: the target is told that an account is compromised, a payment is suspicious or immediate action is required.
Business and employment fraud
Professional networks and job seekers can be targeted with fake employment offers, false invoices, sham business partnerships, bogus investment opportunities or requests to move money through a personal account.
Sextortion
Criminals may use intimate images, fabricated relationships or threats of public exposure to demand payment. INTERPOL’s 2026 assessment said sextortion is increasingly being combined with romance and investment fraud.
Why forced labor makes the model scalable
Forced labor gives a criminal network a controlled, disposable workforce. Operators can impose long hours, scripts and quotas without paying normal labor costs. They can match languages and nationalities to target markets, monitor large numbers of accounts, move workers between schemes and replace people who are injured, arrested or no longer productive.
The result is industrialized social engineering. A compound can provide:
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- supervisors and team leaders;
- scripts and training;
- customer lists and stolen personal information;
- multiple social-media and messaging accounts;
- multilingual workers;
- technical infrastructure and fake websites;
- payment and cryptocurrency channels;
- security and coercive discipline; and
- connections to recruiters and money launderers.
Forced labor is not the only reason these schemes are profitable. Criminal networks also benefit from large pools of potential targets, online advertising, weak or compromised institutions, cross-border jurisdictional gaps, stolen data, money-mule networks, shell companies and financial systems that can move value quickly.
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Technology amplifies the model; it does not create the underlying trafficking system. Conflict, corruption, labor exploitation, weak governance and financial opacity are equally important parts of the explanation.
Where the money goes
The visible scam conversation is only the first layer of the business. A typical flow may look like this:
- A victim sends money through a bank, payment service, cryptocurrency exchange, kiosk or money-transfer provider.
- The network moves the proceeds through wallets, shell companies, casinos, gambling platforms, informal value-transfer systems or laundering services.
- Money is divided among recruiters, compound managers, technical providers, money launderers, security providers, corrupt protectors and senior criminal leadership.
- Some proceeds are converted into property, luxury goods, businesses, weapons, utilities or political protection.
In 2025, the U.S. Treasury identified Cambodia-based Huione Group as a primary money-laundering concern. Treasury has also sanctioned networks connected to Cambodia and Myanmar. These actions illustrate why the problem cannot be solved by arresting the person operating a chat account: the wider economy depends on recruiters, financial intermediaries, technical providers and protection networks.
Why Myanmar and Cambodia appear so often in investigations
Myanmar’s conflict-affected border areas
Some compounds operate in border regions where armed groups, militias, border forces and criminal networks can exercise power beyond effective central-government control. The U.S. Treasury has identified the Karen National Army and networks associated with Shwe Kokko and Myawaddy in sanctions actions involving scam operations, forced labor and alleged protection arrangements. These are sanctions designations, not criminal convictions.
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Treasury’s action involving Burmese armed groups should therefore be read as an account of the U.S. government’s allegations and designations, not as proof that every person or institution in the surrounding region participated.
Cambodia’s casino and property networks
Investigations have focused on compounds and business networks linked to casinos, property developments and politically connected figures. In October 2025, the U.S. Justice Department charged Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi in connection with alleged forced-labor scam compounds in Cambodia. The allegations in an indictment remain allegations unless established in court; the defendant is presumed innocent.
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The geography should not be turned into a stereotype about Cambodian or Myanmar communities. These networks may involve international recruiters, local facilitators, overseas financial infrastructure, foreign victims, technology platforms and armed or politically connected actors. The issue is organized crime operating in particular jurisdictions, not the population of any country.
How large are the losses?
The available numbers measure different things and cannot simply be added together.
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|---|---|---|
| At least $10 billion | An estimate cited by U.S. authorities for losses by Americans to Southeast Asia-based scam operations in 2024. | It is an estimate for a defined geography and population, not total global scam revenue. |
| More than $7.2 billion | Reported U.S. internet-crime losses recorded in the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report. | It covers reported complaints across internet crime, not only Southeast Asian compounds. Many victims do not report. |
| Cryptocurrency-fraud increases | The FBI’s 2025 report recorded a 48% increase in cryptocurrency-fraud complaints and a 25% increase in losses from 2024. | This is the report’s cryptocurrency-fraud category, not a measurement limited to scam compounds. |
The two headline dollar figures should not be combined. One is a government estimate of a geographically linked subset of losses; the other is a reported-loss total covering a broader category. Neither is a reliable measure of the criminals’ gross revenue. Criminal proceeds, money laundered, reported losses and estimated unreported losses are separate concepts.
Underreporting is substantial because victims may feel shame, fear blame, distrust authorities, believe the money cannot be recovered or not know where to report. Reported losses should therefore be treated as a floor rather than the full financial and human cost.
Internationally, INTERPOL said that, as of March 2025, people from 66 countries had been trafficked into online scam centers. It said 74% of identified trafficking victims had been brought to centers in Southeast Asia. Those are figures from identified cases and relevant notices, not a census of every victim worldwide.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Two groups of victims
The system should be understood through both victim groups, not one at the expense of the other.
Trafficked workers
Workers can come from Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America and elsewhere. They may experience confinement, debt bondage, assault, sexual violence, torture, threats, deprivation of food or medical care, forced criminality and punishment after escape attempts.
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Scam targets
Targets may lose retirement savings, incur debt, face bankruptcy or identity theft, and experience severe emotional trauma, shame and isolation. Some victims develop suicidal thoughts or attempt suicide. People who have already lost money can also be targeted by a second fraud: a fake recovery service promising to retrieve the funds.
The criminal system deliberately uses one group to exploit the other. Recognizing workers as potential trafficking victims does not minimize the losses of scam targets. Recognizing the harm to targets does not justify treating every coerced worker as a willing criminal.
What enforcement actions can and cannot do
Recent responses have included Treasury sanctions, Justice Department indictments, asset and cryptocurrency seizures, domain seizures, international police operations and the U.S. Scam Center Strike Force. These actions can disrupt financial channels, expose organizers, rescue workers and make it harder for a particular compound to operate.
They do not automatically end the system. A criminal network may move workers across a border, transfer operations to another compound, rent ordinary office space, change websites and messaging accounts, or retain its recruiters and laundering channels after a raid. Physical enforcement is important, but it must be paired with financial investigations, worker protection, cross-border cooperation and action against the infrastructure that enables recruitment and laundering.
There is also a risk that rescued workers are detained, deported or prosecuted for immigration violations or crimes committed under coercion. Effective enforcement requires screening for trafficking, safe shelter, medical and trauma care, repatriation support, legal assistance, unpaid-wage claims and protection from retaliation.
How to recognize the consumer-facing scams
- An unsolicited online relationship quickly becomes an investment conversation.
- Someone pressures you to move from a normal platform to a private messaging app.
- A person promises guaranteed or unusually high investment returns.
- A supposed expert directs you to an unfamiliar trading website or app.
- A bank, police officer or government official demands immediate payment.
- You are asked to install remote-access software or share a one-time security code.
- You are told to send cryptocurrency, use a cryptocurrency ATM or buy gift cards to resolve an emergency.
- A person claiming to be a lawyer, investigator or blockchain analyst asks for an upfront fee to recover money already lost.
Legitimate authorities do not require victims to pay a fee to receive recovered funds. If money has been sent, contact the bank, exchange or payment provider immediately, preserve messages and transaction records, and report the fraud to the relevant law-enforcement or consumer-protection authority. A prompt report cannot guarantee recovery, but delay can make tracing and freezing funds more difficult.
The larger lesson
“Cyber scam” can sound like a purely technical crime. Scam compounds show why that description is incomplete. The model combines human trafficking, forced labor, social engineering, cryptocurrency and other payment channels, money laundering, corruption, conflict and sometimes territorial control by armed groups.
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The central fact is therefore not just that online fraud costs billions. It is that forced labor helps make the fraud scalable, while the proceeds finance the wider criminal system that keeps workers trapped and victims targeted.
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