SCAM CENTRES

Scam farms are popping up across South-East Asia, luring people with fraudulent job opportunities and forcing them to scam others worldwide. Learn more about it below

What is a Scam Centre?

What is the link to modern slavery?

What is local law enforcement doing about it?

A scam centre is a place - often a large industrial estate - where scams are happening. The scams are undertaken by a range of people (not bots). Some have been lured by false job promises, others go in the hopes of making lots of money. Neither are able to leave and both are treated poorly in these centres, in abusive conditions.

People from all backgrounds have been found themsevles in these centres, from graduates to young women to influencers and models.

The people working in these scam farms are mostly doing so under coercion. Many are forced into working after being trafficked or falsely lured to the scam centre. They are not paid for this work, they are not given any basic resources, and they are often held ransom to families once their use as a scammer has ceased. Those that go voluntarily are subject to the same inhumane conditions as those trafficked there.

These scam centres are located on the borders of fractured states. Myanmar, a popular location for scam centers, went though a miliary coop in 2021 and has been in a civil war since then. As such, tackling scam centres has not been a priotity at state level. Local enforcement, however, is often paid off by the scam centres. People that manage to escape have reported that local law enforcement actively doctor police reports in favour of the scam centres and are unwilling to assist without further payment from victims to get help.

The scam centres function using three key elements:

Scammers create postings for fake jobs, often with fantastic salaries and benefits. They are aimed at graduates or people with basic work skills. Applicants are often put through rigorous interviewing to legitimise the process.

Alternate routes to hire people include through recruiters that present a role at the scam centre as unmissable, or through family and friends.

Job postings can be for all sorts of roles, and it is important to stay aware of the signs of these job postings.

These jobs are used to entice people straight to the scam centres without them knowing what fate awaits.

People from over 65 countries have been trafficked into scam centres this way.

Fraudulent Job Offers

Human Trafficking and Forced Labour

Successful candidates are bought flights to places such as Thailand, the location of their job. They are often taken through a back exit and trafficked to places such as Myanmar, without having officially entered their disembarking country.

They are offered to pay an extortionate ransom for their freedom or forced to work as scammers. They face beatings and threats of bodily harm and sexual assault for non-compliance.

These people are often sold to other scam centres, fetching around US $30,000.

Pig butchering is the name awarded to a certain type of scam.

It begins with the befriending of an unsuspecting target. This could be on a dating app or messaging directly to phone numbers - you may have received one of these texts yourself.

The scammer will start to ask for small amounts of money, or encourage victims to invest in fake crypto platforms that promise incredible returns. The scamming victims will receive money back for the first few times, working up to paying a larger amount that they eventually lose.

It is called ‘pig butchering’ because it fattens up the victims (getting them to pay increasingly large amounts) before ‘slaughter’ (getting them to pay the largest amount yet and disappearing).