Behind online scams lies a rapidly expanding criminal industry in which hundreds of thousands of individuals, recruited from dozens of countries, are forced to work in centers across Southeast Asia under conditions amounting to human trafficking, according to a recently published UN report.
The document published by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) described a structured and transnational system within which the scammers themselves are victims.
Lured in by fake job offers and then kidnapped, these people end up locked inside secured compounds, forced to run online scam operations ranging from identity theft and romance scams to extortion and financial fraud.
“The litany of abuses is both staggering and heartbreaking,” declared the UN Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk, at the report’s release.
According to estimates deemed credible by the OHCHR, at least 300,000 individuals from 66 countries are believed to be involved, often against their will, in these global networks.
Based on testimonies gathered in nine countries, the report documents cases of trafficking between 2021 and 2025 to scam centers located notably in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates.
