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.