Forced to fraudBy Areena Arora, Arundathi Rajan and Srinivasan Ramani February 22, 2026Thousands leave India chasing work in Southeast Asia, unaware they are stepping into an organised system of deception and coercion that spans borders and thrives online. Many here at home fall victim to digital arrests which are often run by the same scam centres.Thousands trapped: The fraud factoryInside the scam centresThousands of Indians set out in search of overseas jobs, only to end up trapped inside fortified scam compounds in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. They are held against their will and forced to defraud strangers online, in what investigators are increasingly describing as digital slavery.Parallelly, Indians at home are also falling prey to digital arrest A scam tactic where criminals impersonate law enforcement authorities and pressure victims into transferring money. scams, targeting mostly elderly and the vulnerable of thousands of crores of hard-earned money.In response to the rise in digital arrest scams, the Union government has constituted an inter-departmental committee chaired by the Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Ministry of Home Affairs. The committee has held meetings with major online platforms, including Google, WhatsApp, Telegram and Microsoft.The Supreme Court is overseeing the government’s response. In a note to the court, the Centre said reported digital arrest scams alone have resulted in losses of over ₹3,000 crore, and that the CBI has been directed to investigate scam networks and the role of banks in enabling mule accounts. The committee is examining legal, regulatory and enforcement gaps and is expected to submit its findings to the court.In these frauds, criminals often impersonate officials and call or video-call victims with forged warrants or arrest orders claiming the victim is under investigation for serious crimes. Victims are then coerced into transferring money to avoid arrest. Victim are often told to stay online or on camera, isolated from others, under constant supervision, heightening fear.India is a top target for digital arrest scams, according to an April 2025 Niti Aayog report.The Supreme Court acknowledged many of these frauds were transnational in nature and instructed the agency to seek assistance from the Interpol.Far from home, along the Thailand-Myanmar border...Along the nearly 330-km stretch of the Moei River, which forms part of the border between Thailand and Myanmar, high-walled, heavily guarded compounds operated with impunity. Inside, trafficked workers were coerced into running sophisticated fraud schemes, building trust through fake identities before siphoning off victims’ savings.It is a double-edged sword: being forced to commit fraud makes perpetrators victims themselves.Indians form a significant share of those ensnared. In 2025 alone, the government repatriated more than 1,500 citizens from scam hubs, highlighting the scale of the trafficking pipeline.The scale could be worse than known. In a statement to the Rajya Sabha, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the exact number of Indian nationals stuck is unknown.As of mid-December 2025, 6,720 Indians have been brought back in various rescue missions over the last few years, the MEA said.Indians rescued from cyber-scam hubs in Southeast AsiaIn March last year, the government brought back 283 Indians, most of whom were captured in scam centres along the Myanmar–Thailand border.A few months later in November, another group of 270 Indians were flown home in two special transport flights from Thailand’s border town of Mae Sot following a mass exodus of trafficked victims from the famous KK Park complex near Myawaddy in Myanmar.These numbers only scratch the surface. Behind them lie stories of deception and coercion.The pipelineHow do victims get trapped?The journey often begins with the promise of a better life. Fraudulent recruiters using social media chat apps and sometimes word of mouth lure young and economically vulnerable people from South Asia and beyond. They advertise high-paying jobs abroad as call-centre agents, data entry operators, graphic designers or freelancers.Once trust is gained, the network facilitates air tickets and visas, often with Thailand or Cambodia as the first stop. Soon, however, victims find themselves herded across borders into remote areas of conflict-ridden and lawless border zones.Initial job offers then disappear, passports are confiscated and victims are locked inside compounds where the only choices are to comply or face brutal consequences.For Indians, the pipeline is supported by conveniently accessible e-visas or visas on arrival for Indians for Myanmar and Thailand. Sometimes, tourists too are trafficked into these scam networks.Once inside, resistance is crushed and victims are forced to work long hours, under constant surveillance.By the time victims realise what they’ve been roped into, escape is near-impossible. Survivors have recalled being made to strip off their clothes, abused physically with electric shocks and being made to watch women being raped if they resisted.Day after day, they are forced to pose as charming strangers on dating apps or convincing brokers on investment-platforms, coaxing unsuspecting targets into romance scams, pig butchering Cyber scams wherein fraudsters first build trust with their victims via offering small profits in bogus investment schemes or fake romantic relationships before thieving from them. scams or fraudulent crypto-investments.Other ways to scam include impersonating banks or law-enforcement, launching phishing attacks or digital arrest schemes to steal credentials or extort money. Some even operate sham online casinos drawing victims into betting and then siphoning off their losses.The pace of work is brutal.Rescued workers have reported 15–17-hour workdays, relentless quotas, no breaks and being constantly monitored by armed guards. Phones and communications are under watch and the outside world becomes unreachable.Some are also held under debt bondage, being forced to pay a price to be let free or under the threat of forced prostitution.The victims are from all over.“Older populations in wealthier countries are targeted most heavily for investment fraud, while younger job-seekers from South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America are disproportionately trafficked into the compounds,” Jacob Sims, visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Centre and expert on transnational and cybercrime in the Mekong, said.Some estimates suggest that over 1,20,000 people in Myanmar alone may be trapped in forced-labour scam centres.“Current estimates are conservative but credible. The biggest unknowns lie in underreported trafficking victims due to state-protected compounds that remain inaccessible to investigators,” Sims said.The scam compounds of border townsA look inside the scam compoundsThese scam centres are sometimes remote huts in jungles. Many are large compounds, sometimes sprawling enough to look like ordinary industrial parks, tucked away in regions where governance is weak, oversight is minimal and militias operate outside the rule of law.Take KK Park for instance.KK Park was part of a sprawling, heavily guarded fraud compound in Myawaddy on the Myanmar side of the Moei River border with Thailand. In mid-October 2025, a major raid on KK Park triggered a mass exodus and thousands, including Indians, trapped inside fled across the border into Thailand.The area is controlled by a junta-allied Border Guard Force led by warlord Saw Chit Thu, who has close personal ties to Myanmar’s junta chief, Min Aung Hlaing. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Saw Chit Thu last year for his deep involvement in criminal operations, citing forced labour and links to the scam compounds.Myawaddy itself is more than a name on the map. It has become one of the main transit hubs where trafficked workers are held and exploited.In early 2025 Thai police identified a well-publicised case involving Chinese actor Wang Xing. According to Thai authorities, Wang had been lured with a promise of a casting opportunity in Thailand and then taken across the border into Myanmar, where he was believed to have been forced to work in a scam operation before he was found and rescued. Operations in and around Myawaddy have rescued thousands more. Most of those rescued came from countries across Africa and Asia.1Nov 2019Baseline view.2Jan 2021Footprint expands.3Nov 2021New blocks take shape.4Dec 2021Denser built-up area.5Jan 2022Expansion continues.6Mar 2022More internal roads.7Apr 2022Further infill.8Nov 2022Compound consolidates.9Dec 2022More activity visible.10Apr 2023Larger footprint.11Feb 2024Mature compound.12Feb 2025Latest view.Satellite images credit: Google EarthAn estimate from a 2025 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute suggests that since 2021, the number of dedicated scam compounds in Myanmar along the Thai border grew from around 11 to at least 30, with construction expanding at a rapid clip (on average about 13.5 acres per month) as crackdowns force syndicates to build new facilities.Another location, Shwe Kokko sat on the western bank of the Moei River in Myanmar’s Kayin State about 20 km north of Myawaddy and across the river border from Thailand.It was originally marketed as part of a Chinese-backed new city project, once advertised as a gleaming special economic zone. It once promised investors casinos, hotels, and a new cityscape of trade and tourism.But it soon became a repurposed hub for organised crime, far from the neon-lit entertainment district its developers had pitched.The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control in a September 2025 sanction notice, singled out nine companies and individuals operating in Shwe Kokko for running massive crypto and investment-scam operations under militia protection.In November last year, a U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia launched a Scam Center Strike Force to dismantle the transnational criminal networks operating out of Southeast Asia.The compounds tend to cluster around borders so it’s easy to relocate amid government crackdowns. Even in remote areas, they still have access to electricity and the internet, according to a May 2025 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.These buildings housing these operations often follow the same blueprint, the report said. Many are built in repurposed hotels, casinos, villas and apartment complexes. In Myanmar, some compounds near the Thailand border are built with rows of dormitories.The report describes scam compounds built like prisons, not workplaces. High walls, gates, guard posts, barbed wire, CCTV and even attack dogs are framed as security against outsiders. Dormitories are overcrowded, surveilled and physically restricted with barred windows and balconies.Workers live and work entirely within these sealed environments. They sleep under constant monitoring. Workdays sometimes run overnight to match victims’ time zones. Failure to meet targets or resist orders is punished through isolation cells, black-out rooms, and torture.A look inside scam compoundsBillions flow through cryptocurrencyThe scale of this transnational scamIn 2024, Americans alone lost over $10 billion due to Southeast Asia-based scams, up 66% from 2023, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.Public estimates state over $53 billion has been lost to crypto-scams alone since 2023. These are “directionally accurate but almost certainly undercounts,” Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence company that analyses cryptocurrency-related financial crimes, said.“Underreporting is systemic. Many victims never report, some don’t realise they’ve been scammed until months later, and cross-border cases fragment across jurisdictions”— Ari Redbord“Crackdowns on major exchanges tend to push activity outward into more opaque channels, not eliminate it,” Redbord said.Money laundering frequently runs through a mix of online gambling, fake cryptocurrency platforms, shell companies, and clandestine financial networks. That makes tracing the origins or beneficiaries of the money exceedingly difficult.This financial might allows scam networks to build more compounds, recruit more victims, bribe local officials and expand. In effect, scam centres breed more scam centres.Scam-centre operators often steer victims toward cryptocurrencies, not just traditional bank transfers, because crypto transactions are typically irreversible and require no central authority approval. Unlike typical bank transfers, cryptocurrency flies under financial regulators’ radar.This process from crypto to cash is the final leg of laundering: it transforms stolen, tainted funds into fiat.“Speed and coordination matter more than new theory. The value isn’t the data itself, it’s the compression of time between detection and action ... Many agencies still can’t combine bank alerts, exchange data, telco signals and blockchain intelligence fast enough to stop losses,” Redbord said.The rapidly evolving nature of the technologies involved make the task of law enforcement even harder.Power vacuum after the coupHow did Myanmar become the centre of these scams?The rise of scam centres in Myanmar is not accidental. The country’s descent into civil conflict, weak state oversight, fractured governance and multiple armed groups fighting for power created fertile ground.When the military coup of 2021 deepened chaos, criminal syndicates moved rapidly to exploit the power vacuum. Many border regions especially along Myanmar’s frontiers with Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, China are controlled by ethnic armed groups or militias.The proceeds feed more than just the criminal syndicates. Militias, ethnic armed groups, or even junta-linked forces reportedly tax or protect these operations, turning scam-centres into revenue streams that fuel arms, local control, and political power.While such operations have grown substantially since the pandemic, online scams and fraud have been a significant problem in Southeast Asia for more than a decade.“Myanmar’s collapse accelerated the industry dramatically, but it did not originate it.”— Jacob Sims“State actors and militias provide territorial protection, electricity, security, and criminal impunity,” Sims said. “In Cambodia, this industry can be viewed as the backbone of a highly stable criminalised political economy. In Myanmar, it is part of the conflict economy, strengthening the junta by generating off-budget revenue and rewarding loyal armed groups.”For syndicates, Myanmar offered a dangerous but lucrative bargain: minimal risk, high returns, a captive workforce, weak oversight, and easy escape routes across porous borders.The country ranks number one in Asia on criminality, measured by the Global Organized Crime Index. The score is a measure of the strength and scale of criminal markets and the structure and influence of criminal actors.A transnational threatHow scam networks became a regional security crisisFrom Indians trapped in cyber-fraud hubs to cross-border digital arrest scams and diplomatic fallout across Southeast Asia, what began as online fraud has evolved into a coordinated transnational crime challenge that India and the region are still struggling to confront.For India, the crisis has become painfully real. Over 1,500 citizens repatriated this year alone show how vulnerable Indian job-seekers remain to false promises.Meanwhile in Thailand, the crisis is reshaping border security and diplomacy. When the Myanmar Armed Forces raided KK Park in October 2025, nearly 700 entrapped people including many Indians fled into Thailand. Thai authorities detained them, processed them, and coordinated with foreign governments for repatriation.Many of the crime syndicates running these hubs are believed to be of Chinese origin; some are alleged to be linked to former casino operators or gambling networks now dismantled.The network stretches well beyond Myanmar, reaching into Laos’ Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone and parts of Cambodia along the Mekong, both of which have also repeatedly surfaced in reports of similar transnational crime rings.In effect, what began as scattered fraud rings has escalated into a transnational security problem. For countries that means dealing not just with lost jobs or cheated individuals, but with cross-border crime, human trafficking, and potential geopolitical fallout.So, what is next for these hard to crack networks? Dismantling them as it turns out is easier imagined than done.“Full dismantlement is unlikely in the near term. We’ve been combatting drugs for 100 years and haven’t meaningfully dismantled that industry. Scams are far easier to run and harder to dismantle,” Sims said.