Rex Heuermann pleaded guilty in court to killing eight women, whose bodies were found discarded on Long Island between 1993 and 2010. He is expected to receive life in prison without parole when sentenced on June 17.

The case stretched over decades. The victims — most of whom were sex workers — were found along a stretch of Gilgo Beach beginning in 2010, but the killings began much earlier. Heuermann, a Long Island architect, lived an outwardly normal life throughout. He was arrested in 2023 after DNA evidence and cell phone data placed him at scenes connected to the murders.

Scam compounds — large, often fortified facilities where trafficked workers are forced to run online fraud operations — have proliferated across Southeast Asia since the COVID-19 pandemic. What began as a regional criminal phenomenon has grown into a global industry, with victims from dozens of countries funneled into compounds primarily in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos.

The business model is specific: criminal organizations traffic workers under false pretenses (job offers, romantic contacts), confiscate their documents, and force them to run cryptocurrency fraud, romance scams, and investment schemes targeting victims in wealthy countries. Workers who don’t meet quotas face abuse. Workers who try to leave face worse.

Jasveen Sangha was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for distributing the ketamine that killed actor Matthew Perry in 2023. Additional individuals connected to the supply network — including medical professionals — were also charged and sentenced as part of the same investigation.

Perry died in October 2023 from acute ketamine effects. He had been receiving legitimate ketamine treatments for depression but had also been obtaining the drug through illegal channels at doses far exceeding therapeutic levels.