Southeast Asian governments and companies have been rocked by a renewed focus on the region’s notorious fraud hubs, complexes where workers – often victims of human trafficking themselves – attempt to defraud individuals in wealthier economies such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
In mid-October, the United States and the United Kingdom Sanctions were imposed Targeting individuals and entities within the Cambodia-based Prince Group, which officials have accused of being linked to transnational cybercrime. Nearby Singapore later It confiscated just over $115 million in assets linked to the group. (Prince’s group said this week that it “categorically rejects” any allegations that it or its chairman Chen Zhi engaged in any illegal activity.)
South Korea too Emergency measures began last month To rescue her kidnapped nationals in Cambodia after a Korean tourist was found murdered near a fraudulent complex. On October 22, Thai Deputy Finance Minister Vorapak Tanyaung He resigned after only one month In the job after accusations that he was linked to the networks of the Cambodian Fraud Centre. (Vorabak denied the allegations)
The United States announced this on Thursday It will start A new “Fraud Center Strike Force” to target cybercriminals based in Southeast Asia, with US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro calling it “a national security problem and a homeland security problem.”
It is a dramatic escalation of a case that has been in the headlines since the beginning of the year, when Chinese actor Wang Xing disappeared in Thailand and was brought to a scam center in neighboring Myanmar.
There are still hundreds of thousands of others Trapped in fraud centers in Southeast AsiaAccording to the United Nations. Many have been lured by false job ads on platforms like Facebook, says Jacob Sims, a fellow at Harvard’s Asia Center and an expert on transnational crime and human rights in Southeast Asia.
“They are taken to these compounds that look like penal colonies, with barbed wire on the inside, guard towers facing inward, and bars over the windows,” Sims adds. “They are brought inside and told to defraud people, and if they don’t, they are beaten, tortured, abused, killed – and that becomes the lives of all these people.”
These fraud complexes are primarily located in three countries – Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – especially in their border areas, where local governments have compromised In reality He controls.
Despite mounting global efforts to dismantle it, achieving sustainable change has proven difficult. When one fraud center is removed, another quickly spreads elsewhere.
“Criminal groups are very strategic – they find areas where governance is weak, where local authorities are easy to manipulate, and where corruption thrives,” says Hamerli Sariai, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusuf Ishak Institute in Singapore. “These will be the ideal conditions for them to collude with local elites.”
A thriving problem
Fraud centers are now a matter of global diplomacy. Last month, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur. South Korea and Cambodia It agreed to form a task force dedicated to going after human traffickers. Separately, the United States and the United Kingdom They both seized $15 billion Bitcoin value from Southeast Asian fraud empires.
On the one hand, criminal groups have spent decades building their own elite protection networks, Harvard’s Sims says. Many criminal networks shifted from gambling hubs to fraud hubs when the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily halted international travel.
Then the increasing number of fraud complexes began to receive protection from local elites.
“Local officials and economic interests are often complicit[in fraud centres’ operations]offering protection in exchange for bribes,” says Joan Lin, a senior fellow and coordinator at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
One example is KK Park, one of the largest fraud complexes on the Myanmar-Thailand border. Myanmar military spokesmen have pointed the finger at the Karen National Union, an ethnic armed organization from the country, for being involved in the construction of KK Park alongside Chinese unions.
Fraud centers traditionally rely on trafficked persons. A 2025 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime concluded as much Victims in fraud centers in Southeast Asia come from more than 50 countries around the world.
“The pandemic has created a large newly vulnerable population — people who used to hold stable jobs, are multilingual, urban, well-educated, younger and tech-savvy,” says Harvard’s Sims. “It has expanded the type of people vulnerable to being trafficked into fraud hubs.”
But while the scammers were mostly Chinese and Thai nationals, the workforce has now expanded to include more Burmese and Cambodian youth. Political instability, as well as the civil war in Myanmar, have eroded employment opportunities for young people, who are now a constant source of labor for fraud centres.
“This shows the corrupting influence of this industry. It is not just the pockets of foreigners who use these countries as an island for their operations, but it also attracts locals,” says Mark Poe, researcher and co-author of the book. Fraud: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Complexes.
Artificial intelligence, cryptography, and deepfakes
Fraudsters are also exploiting new technologies to enhance their operations. Online translation services and AI deepfakes are increasing the complexity and credibility of scams.
The most common is the “pig slaughter scam”, a long-running scam where scammers build trust with the victim through a false friendship or romantic relationship, before luring them into a fake investment scheme.
“If you think you’re dating someone really attractive online, you might want to talk to them, perhaps via video chat,” Sims says. “In this case, the deepfakes used are really good.”
Fraudsters have also exploited altcoins, e.g Cryptocurrency and other decentralized finance (DeFi) tools such as stablecoinsTo aid the money laundering process and make tracking illicit profits more difficult.
These currencies are an integral part of cybercrime operations because they are poorly understood and often anonymous, says Christina Amerhauser, senior analyst at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).
“When you exchange cryptocurrencies back into fiat currency (i.e. government-issued currency, such as the US dollar), the KYC checks conducted by cryptocurrency exchanges are often limited, which makes them very attractive to criminals,” Amerhauser says.
Whack-a-mole game
These fraud centers have far-reaching impacts on Southeast Asia and beyond.
It erodes public confidence, drains household savings, and particularly targets the elderly and the less digitally savvy, says Lin of the Yusuf Ishak Institute-ISEAS. Many victims lose their life savings, which in turn weakens social stability.
For governments, she adds, these activities damage international reputations and strain law enforcement resources.
but The transnational nature of fraud centers– coupled with rampant corruption – makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to confront.
“International law frameworks are built on seeing state actors as partners – everyone is moving towards this vague idea of development, prosperity and freedom,” Sims adds. “But these countries are not abiding by these rules.” “In[the countries hosting the fraud centres]the domestic rule of law has already been so profoundly undermined that the idea of upholding international law by any means other than rhetoric is utterly impossible.”
With the support of local power brokers, law enforcement becomes a game of whack-a-mole.
Even if international agencies like Interpol can track down and identify the perpetrators of scam centers, it remains difficult to identify a legitimate “authority” to work with to crack down on them, says Yin Zhi Yi, a senior analyst from S. Rajaratnam International Studies Institute (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University. Instead, when a hub is discovered or raided, operators quickly move on and resume business elsewhere, Lin says.
Root causes
As international pressure mounts, crackdowns on fraud centers have intensified in recent months – such as at KK Park, where A military-led crackdown in October led to the arrest of more than 2,000 people.
But some experts, like Sims and Sariai, argue that such measures are only temporary solutions.
“Most of the observed response from the three countries has been performance and designed to transfer the industry into the hands of more powerful domestic elites or ease international pressure – or both – so there is no real reform,” Sims says.
Instead, they believe it is necessary to address the root causes of why people fall prey to scams in the first place.
Many around the world are facing economic stagnation, job insecurity and inflation, and individual countries need to fix their internal problems to prevent citizens from being tempted by scam centers, Sariai says.
Regional networks and intergovernmental organizations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, She also has a role to play.
“ASEAN can serve as a focal point connecting Southeast Asian countries to the international community that may have the technical expertise and resources to help smaller ASEAN countries,” says Sariai.
The alliance also provides an effective platform for negotiations with major countries such as China, where many fraud gangs originate.
But ultimately, experts believe individuals need to protect themselves. On this front, governments can help improve digital literacy, including teaching people what cryptocurrency and fintech platforms look like and how they work.
“Legislation and its enforcement are important, but it is also important to raise awareness and build people’s ability to spot suspicious apps and know when they might invest in an illicit platform,” says GI-TOC’s Ammerhauser.
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