The rise of scam centres across Myanmar in 2025 reveals a devastating convergence of armed conflict, political breakdown, and transnational organized crime. With an estimated 100,000 individuals trafficked into forced cyber fraud operations, Myanmar is now the site of one of the world’s most complex and brutal human trafficking crises. These centres are more than criminal hotspots, they are the economic and security outgrowths of the military junta’s political survival strategy.
Rapid digitalization in the region, combined with regulatory gaps and cross-border corruption, has allowed scam networks to proliferate. Myanmar’s internal instability, worsened since the 2021 military coup, has provided ideal conditions for these operations to take hold and expand.
Origins and Expansion of the Scam Centres
The development of scam compounds in Myanmar is rooted in post-coup political instability and opportunistic criminal networks. These operations have rapidly evolved into fortified, profit-driven ecosystems.
Background and geopolitical context
Following the 2021 coup, Myanmar entered a sustained period of conflict between the military regime and ethnic armed resistance groups. The power vacuum and territorial fragmentation gave rise to parallel economies. By 2025, these included more than 30 industrial-scale scam compounds, largely situated along the Thailand-Myanmar border and spanning secure facilities averaging over 13 acres each.
Unlike traditional trafficking networks, these operations are militarized. Compounds are protected with watchtowers, private ferry access, and armed checkpoints. These centres operate beyond state control, or in many cases, with the state’s direct complicity offering both protection and profit in exchange for political loyalty.
The victims and their treatment
Victims are fooled with promises of well-paid work in tech, or freelance assignments, and kidnapped and taken to torturous 14-17-hours shifts. Among the scams are romance cons, fraudulent investment schemes as well as cryptocurrency fraud and in most cases users in the U.S, Europe and Asia are targeted. China, India, the Philippines, Kenya and even Brazil are the origin of the majority of the victims.
Survivor testimonies recorded by the humanitarian monitors have detailed how they were tortured because of non-performance, being beaten with a rod, shocked with wire or even threatened with organ harvesting. The detainees will be deprived of fundamental rights, food is scarce, no contacts outside, and they are guarded. The trafficking pipeline has grown into a systemized industry built on exploitation.
The Military Junta’s Role and Criminal Ecosystem
As criminal economies expand, Myanmar’s military rulers have become entangled in and dependent on their operations. This adds layers of complexity to dismantling the scam centres.
Junta complicity and economic dimension
Unlike ad hoc criminal syndicates, Myanmar’s scam centres function within a political economy sustained by the military junta. With declining international aid and widespread sanctions, the junta increasingly relies on crime syndicates, militias, and borderland actors for resources and control.
As of early 2025, scam operations have been identified in territories formerly uninvolved indicating deliberate expansion into junta-aligned zones. This represents an economic pivot by the regime, offering criminal entrepreneurs impunity in exchange for loyalty, financing, or armed support.
Fragmented resistance and territorial complexity
Ethnic armed groups like the Karen National Union (KNU), long ambivalent toward cybercrime in their territories, have shifted stance. In late 2024 and early 2025, KNU forces launched coordinated crackdowns on scam centres in southeastern Myanmar. While effective locally, these efforts are constrained by broader instability and the relocation of scam centres into deeper junta-controlled regions.
The result is a game of displacement, not disruption centres close in one province only to reopen elsewhere, often with improved infrastructure and expanded digital capabilities.
Regional and International Responses
Efforts to counter Myanmar’s scam crisis are increasing but remain fragmented. A combination of enforcement, diplomacy, and humanitarian aid is required.
Border enforcement and bilateral cooperation
Thailand has increased border patrols and improved screening of immigration citing a rise in the number of trafficked people who are being rescued close to checkpoints. China, which has been under pressure as a nation because of the trafficking of its nationals, has already sent back thousands of its citizens, as well as launched collaborative efforts with Myanmar-linked actors. These activities, although commendable, have largely moved the criminality infrastructure instead of destroying it.
Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia have also raised concerns about the increasing cybercrime emanated in Myanmar, yet regional enforcement is not well synchronized.
Global pressure and limited results
The United Nations, Interpol, and human rights organizations have called for sanctions and international investigations into Myanmar’s trafficking industry. Yet with limited access and state denial, enforcement is mostly symbolic. Western governments, including the U.S. and EU, have sanctioned specific junta officials, but broader strategies remain elusive.
This person has spoken on the topic, highlighting the significance of Myanmar’s scam crisis in global and regional contexts:
Their insights emphasize the regional complicity and the need for a united diplomatic front to combat the industrial-scale human exploitation underway in Myanmar.
Technological Sophistication and Global Impact
The scam centres are not only an abuse of people but also a sophisticated network of cybercrime. Innovations in fraud tactics have made global impact inevitable.
Cybercrime evolution in Myanmar
Scam networks have adopted artificial intelligence tools to generate sophisticated phishing scripts and create deepfake videos. These tools allow even poorly trained trafficked workers to successfully manipulate victims. Scammers are instructed to impersonate celebrities, financial advisors, or romantic partners, tailoring scripts to the social media habits of their targets.
Cryptocurrency is central to laundering operations. Using blockchain to anonymize transactions, the centres convert stolen funds into crypto assets, which are then moved across exchanges in jurisdictions with weak enforcement. These transactions are nearly untraceable and generate billions annually.
Humanitarian and security threats
The scam centres have become both a humanitarian crisis and a cybersecurity emergency. According to international estimates, more than $75 billion was stolen globally in 2024–25 through scam operations based in Myanmar. The human cost, psychological trauma, physical abuse, and long-term debt bondage remains underreported.
Cybersecurity experts warn that these centres could evolve into semi-autonomous criminal economies, connected through transnational digital infrastructure and capable of resisting traditional enforcement.
Toward Sustainable Solutions and International Cooperation
The road to resolution requires cooperation across borders, alongside new political strategies. Regional actors and global organizations must realign their approach.
Political and diplomatic pressure
Experts agree that bilateral engagement with the junta is unlikely to curb the growth of scam centres. Rather the international community has to act through local resistance forces and civil society players that are already challenging the propagation of cybercrime. The human rights standards imposed in the Karen National Union crackdown demonstrates that local actors can impose standards of human rights, with resources and diplomatic legitimacy.
The countries of southeast Asia, in particular, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia need to increase cross-border and intelligence sharing. Regional economic forums such as ASEAN might not be willing to work on a direct basis, yet focused sub-regional discussions might spur growth.
Victim-centered and technological responses
Rescue efforts should be accompanied with long term victim support, legal channels, psychological support, and safe repatriation. Long term survivor support funding which is in the form of donor-funded NGOs needs to be increased particularly those victims who are in refugee like situations with no documentation or financial resources.
At the same time, front line law enforcement agencies should be given cyber forensic training, real-time fraud monitoring, and AI-monitoring tools. The scam crisis in Myanmar is more of an arms race of technology than it is a humanitarian crisis.
The case of Myanmar is a trickling example of how authoritarianism, economic crisis, and digital innovation are able to converge and form new exploitation mechanisms never witnessed. With the world still struggling with the changing nature of cybercrime and human trafficking, the decisions of 2025 will either render Myanmar a lesson, or a mark in the fight against global human insecurity.