A Failing Border: How Human Trafficking Fuels Cybercrime in Southeast Asia?

By Lina Kolesnikova – Internationally Respected Security and Crisis Management Consultant

On October 23, 2025, more than 600 people fled to Thailand from the KK Park fraud center in Myanmar following a military raid. They escaped on foot, by motorcycle, or in pickup trucks.

The deputy governor of Thai Tak province near the Myanmar border, reported that “immigration police and a military task force worked together to provide assistance as part of a humanitarian effort … and these people are now being screened.” The Tak provincial government stated that the group consisted of foreign nationals, both men and women, and authorities anticipated an increase in border crossings into Thailand.

Scam industry paradise
The Golden Triangle—a vast area of Southeast Asia at the intersection of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and China, known for its opium trade—has recently undergone a remarkable technological transformation. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the loss of most of the revenue for luxury casino resorts, the region has invested heavily in cybercrime, and according to a 2023 United Nations report, its profits are estimated at approximately $37 billion annually.

Situated at the heart of the underground economy, the region, made up of countries bordering the Mekong, has been investing heavily in online fraud since the early 2020s.

In Myanmar, during the civil war sparked by the February 2021 coup, vast complexes flourished along the poorly guarded border with Thailand, where online scammers target foreigners with offers of romance and business.

Most of the scam sites along the river of Moei, which runs along the border with Thailand, are controlled by Chinese criminal groups operating in collusion with Myanmar militias. The current Myanmar government is turning a blind eye on fraud networks run by its militia allies, who, in turn, control the border areas on its behalf.

Recent industrialisation of the scam industry along the Thai border has seen the significant construction of dozens of dedicated, high-security scam complexes that serve as hubs for the illicit activity. This is a dramatic expansion from the previous practice of renting hotels and converting them to scam offices.

The growth of Myanmar’s scam industry has attracted greater public attention since 2024, as high-profile human trafficking incidents have been reported by Chinese media. Thailand even started to loose revenue from tourism, especially from East Asia, as people’s fear of trafficking.

The Myanmar government now is under pressure from China, which is outraged by the number of its citizens involved and falling victim to scams.

China, Thailand, and Myanmar have launched a highly publicized joint effort to eradicate this scourge. Last February, about 7,000 workers were evacuated from the area. Last October, Chinese authorities also announced the arrest of several leaders and members of criminal gangs operating from Myanmar.

However, Myanmar is just one of the countries in that network; expansive scam compounds popped up in Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines.

Scam modus operandi
Some escapees from forced labor reported working seventeen hours a day, under meticulous control of their captors. Equipped with computers and phones, they were forced to communicate with people on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Tinder using online translation tools. Others were forced to use their voices, and sometimes faces modified by AI, to further interact with targeted people. In the hands of mafia, this type of criminal activity has initially targeted the Chinese market but keeps expanding internationally ever since.

To lure a man, a fake profile of a beautiful and wealthy woman is created, and vice versa (man’s profile to target a woman). Hundreds of thousands of dollars are extorted from American, European, Chinese and other citizens seeking romantic relationships or business opportunities.

Internet users who fall victims to these scams on dating, gaming, or investment sites are tricked into transferring money they will never see again or investing in fraudulent schemes or fake cryptocurrency sites.

Named as a pig-butchering scams for the “fattening up” of victims before taking everything they have – are a multibillion-dollar illicit industry in which the scammers take on false online identities and spend months grooming their targets to get them to invest on bogus crypto sites. Deepfakes are one more weapon in their arsenal.

Human trafficking and kidnapping of foreign nationals
This booming Southeast Asian industry relies on human trafficking and forced labour to enable these malicious scams. In its 2023 report, the UN estimated that at least 120,000 people, many of them Chinese, were held in Myanmar’s online fraud centers. Workers in these centers are often lured with promises of high-paying jobs in Thailand, or simply captured and trafficked, and are regularly held against their will, forced to engage in online fraud in heavily guarded facilities.

According to French Le Monde, approximately 200 Moroccans are believed to be held as well, in camps run by mafia networks specializing in cybercrime. The story, which has been making headlines in Moroccan newspapers for nearly two weeks last spring, is astonishing and disturbing. According to a committee formed by the victims’ families, the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received reports of 158 captives to date.

How did Moroccans in their 20s and 30s end up halfway around the world in the hands of mafia networks? According to Le Monde the victims, whether students or employees, are contacted by strangers, also Moroccans, most often online. Victims are questioned about their sales or IT skills before getting a proposal for a job in e-commerce from a Thai company with a good salary. To gain the victims’ trust the fictitious preliminary interviews with prospective managers on-site are arranged as well.

After accepting the offer, victims are invited to fly to Malaysia, a country for which Moroccan citizens do not require a visa. The scammers pay for the tickets and hotel accommodations. Everything is done to ensure victims feel comfortable. On the day of their arrival in Bangkok, they are met at the airport and taken to Myanmar’s Karen state.

According to the victims’ testimonies, the Moroccan victims met other victims from Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Lebanon, sub-Saharan Africa at these scam sites.

According to those who have been there, daily life in these “complexes” is a living hell. Days without rest, from Monday to Sunday, follow one another with one goal: to deceive as many Internet users as possible. The compounds are heavily securitised and fortified, with armed guards, fences, watchtowers, checkpoints and heavy surveillance, along with considerable permanent border-crossing infrastructure.

That infrastructure directly enables the human trafficking of victims across the Thai border.

Leaving the camp where the captives are held requires a payment of $6,000 in cryptocurrency as a ransom money.

In November 2023, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab reported on a “massive kidnapping and fraud operation” on a global scale. “These criminal syndicates responded to environmental instability and subsequent upheavals by using labor trafficking to defraud people around the world and make millions of dollars a year.”

Conclusion
In Southeast Asia, a thriving online scam business has a global impact. Those activities result in substantial costs, not only for the individuals trafficked and those scammed, but also for the social and economic development of the region.

Technological innovation increasingly serves as both an enabler of progress and a facilitator of criminal or unethical activities. The principle of preventing misuse by design must therefore become integral to the development of digital infrastructures, AI, and global communication systems.

Preventive design should therefore prioritize identifiability and traceability of AI-generated or AI-adjusted content.

Key design priorities might include:

• Reliable identification mechanisms: the development of accessible, one-click verification systems capable of distinguishing authentic materials from AI-generated ones. Such tools would enhance trust in digital information environments and facilitate law enforcement and regulatory oversight.
• Transparency and the question of data visibility: a central ethical and legal dilemma concerns whether AI-generated materials should remain private or whether public registration or traceable indexing is necessary to allow for detection and accountability. The challenge lies in reconciling the privacy rights of creators with the broader societal need to prevent disinformation, fraud, and manipulation.

Technological means of tracking and verifying travellers can substantially enhance security; however, they simultaneously raise concerns over privacy and data protection. Determining the legitimate scope of monitoring requires identifying stakeholders on both sides of the debate, including state actors, private companies, and non-state entities operating within hybrid conflict environments.

The modernization of telecommunication systems should include mechanisms for transparency and authentication, such as verified caller identities or encrypted but traceable communication protocols. At the same time, policymakers must navigate the tension between security imperatives and the political narrative of “freedom of communication,” particularly in contexts where opposition groups rely on telecommunication platforms to resist authoritarian regimes.

The emergence of global satellite networks, such as SpaceX’s Starlink, further complicates questions of sovereignty and compliance. Should such providers adhere strictly to national regulations, or may they bypass governmental authority in the name of political or humanitarian principles? Oversight mechanisms are needed to ensure that declared purposes correspond to actual use, and that such systems do not inadvertently become tools of interference or evasion.

Other industries offer valuable precedents for integrating preventive design.

The financial services sector, for instance, has developed sophisticated anti-fraud monitoring systems over decades, capable of detecting subtle behavioral anomalies. Similarly, telecommunications providers in high-risk regions have accumulated extensive experience in mitigating communication-based fraud. These models underscore the importance of continuous data analysis, feedback loops, and adaptive policy frameworks — principles that could be fruitfully applied to AI governance and digital communication systems.

To read this article and more: Download the Nov/Dec 2025 issue