Hundreds of thousands of people trafficked into ‘scamdemic’ by south-east Asian gangs, UN warns

Young professionals are lured by fake job offers before being imprisoned in compounds and coerced into defrauding victims

Taiwanese national Wei Pin Yang was trafficked to Cambodia last year under the premise of a job offer before being set to work in a scam centre
Taiwanese national Wei Pin Yang was trafficked to Cambodia last year under the premise of a new job before being set to work in a scam centre Credit: I-HWA CHENG

Hundreds of thousands of people are being forced into online criminality in south-east Asia by a network of brutal gangs, a new report by the United Nations has warned.

The investigation by the UN Human Rights Office turns a fresh spotlight on the shocking scale of a sophisticated cyber racket sweeping the globe, defrauding victims in schemes worth billions of dollars.

The scammers are often young professionals who are lured by the gangs with the promise of fake jobs before being imprisoned in compounds and coerced into cheating people all over the world through romance-investment scams, crypto fraud and illegal gambling.

If they refuse to comply, they face serious threats to their safety, including torture, cruel and degrading treatment, arbitrary detention and sexual violence, says the report.

“People who are coerced into working in these scamming operations endure inhumane treatment while being forced to carry out crimes. They are victims. They are not criminals,” said Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“In continuing to call for justice for those who have been defrauded through online criminality, we must not forget that this complex phenomenon has two sets of victims.”

‘We were slaves’

A Telegraph investigation earlier this year into the so-called “scamdemic,” revealed the case of Indian graphic designer Stephan Wesley, 29, who was trapped inside a large, fenced compound in Myanmar guarded by armed henchmen after applying for an attractive $1,100 a month job in Thailand.

He described how after an elaborate recruitment process in Dubai and Thailand, he had been trafficked across the border to a camp run by the Chinese mafia.

Along with other captives, he was tasked with pretending to be a young, attractive Thai woman on social media to try to persuade people to invest in a fraudulent cryptocurrency app.

“We were so scared. There was no option to escape..We did what they told us to do, we were slaves,” he said, describing how the gang leaders would torture people with electric shocks and beatings to keep them in line.

Thousands of crypto investors across the world, including the UK, have been conned out of billions of dollars by the increasingly elaborate scams emerging from industrial-size compounds operating in south-east Asia, particularly in Myanmar and Cambodia.

The UN report says that because of its clandestine nature, the enormity of the online scam trafficking is hard to estimate, but cites “credible sources” indicating 120,000 are being forcibly held in Myanmar, and 100,000 in Cambodia. Tens of thousands may be impacted in Lao PDR, the Philippines and Thailand.

Scamming crimes have mushroomed in recent years, with pandemic lockdowns accelerating the shift into an increasingly lucrative online space, as well as prompting casino operators to move their operations to less regulated or conflict-riven border zones.

Increased time spent online during Covid-19 restrictions made people more susceptible to fraudulent recruitment and online fraud schemes, say researchers.

Most of the trafficking victims are men, although some women and adolescents have been deceived. Many are well-educated with graduate or even post-graduate degrees, with some coming from professional jobs. They are computer-literate and multi-lingual.

The gangs recruit them from across south and south-east Asia, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and sometimes from as far afield as Africa and Latin America.

Mr Türk urged law enforcement authorities to offer protection and rehabilitation to trafficking victims rather than erroneously identifying them as criminals or immigration offenders.

“Only such a holistic approach can break the cycle of impunity and ensure protection and justice for the people who have been so horrifically abused,” he said.

Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security