Thailand is facing a growing menace of call centre rackets and human trafficking and smuggling networks that have become serious frontiers of national security. On July 10, 2025, the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) retreated to its pledge of the five-point plan of issuing terrorism in a bid to stamp out these criminal activities.
The move is part of months of investigations which culminated in raids in Bangkok, Samut Prakan, and Chonburi. Law enforcers focused on a massive cross-border operation that was related to the Cambodian organized crime figure, Kok An. The outcome was mind boggling: assets worth more than 1 billion baht were taken including cash, vehicles, and property, and the major players detained. This high-profile crackdown highlighted how deeply embedded these groups are within Thailand’s borders—and how urgent a comprehensive response has become.
The five pillars of ISOC’s strategy
Prevention: targeting recruitment and raising awareness
One of the major drivers of the strategy is prevention, which is set to disrupt the cycle of recruitment. Traffickers and scam recruiters consistently use vulnerable populations, and undocumented migrants in specific, as their targets. As there are more than 4.4 million foreign nationals living in Thailand and a big portion of them are not provided with legal protection, the abuses grow in the darkness.
Community-based outreach programs have been started by ISOC in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Such activities comprise information campaigns, risk education, and advisory services to empower the migrants particularly in the rural or industrious areas where the most illicit recruitments take place.
Prosecution: improving coordination and legal efficiency
Police institutions such as Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB), and the Anti-Human Trafficking Centre are being more aggressive. They have strengthened their work and hence collaborated with international organizations including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The disruption in the network of Kok An proved that even the well-financed, inter-state organized crime networks with support across the state could be beaten down through assistance of the intelligence-based policing and judicial cooperation. However, the problem rests in making sure that prosecutions result in convictions. Delays in justice are always caused by legal loopholes, long trials and monopolizing interests all of which have an effect of lowering deterrence.
Protection: reinforcing victim support systems
Thailand’s policy now places greater emphasis on the rehabilitation of trafficking survivors. Shelters across the country provide legal aid, psychological care, and job training. In 2023, 196 survivors were reintegrated into the workforce through government initiatives.
Efforts have also been made to remove bureaucratic hurdles that delay legal status and witness protection. The government has extended temporary stay permits for victims assisting in criminal cases and increased funding for interpreter services to reduce retraumatization during legal proceedings.
Policy and mechanisms: strengthening institutional response
Legal and institutional reforms have become central to ISOC’s updated agenda. Nearly 24% more funding has been allocated to combat trafficking in 2025. Draft legislation on supply chain transparency aims to curtail forced labor in agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
The National Referral Mechanism (NRM), Thailand’s main tool for coordinating victim services, has been upgraded to improve response speed and coordination. These reforms show a shift toward a systemic, long-term approach beyond episodic raids.
Partnerships: regional and global collaboration
The strategy also hinges on regional partnerships, recognizing that trafficking and scamming operations often transcend borders. Collaboration with Cambodian and Indonesian law enforcement has improved, with intelligence exchanges and coordinated rescues increasing.
At the policy level, the ASEAN 2025 initiative encourages legal harmonization and joint victim protection mechanisms. Thailand has committed to the framework, emphasizing its role as a regional hub for anti-trafficking leadership.
Challenges and critiques
Corruption and implementation gaps
According to powerful rhetoric and policy development, great obstacles remain. The issue of corruption by local authorities and police officers still is a matter. Probes have shown situations, where law enforcers were co-conspirators in the sheltering or assisting in the trafficking activities.
The victim assistance also suffers due to bureaucratic red tapes especially in cases involving foreign nationals. According to human rights agencies, there are delays in the mechanism of identifying the victims and inconsistency in providing protections at regional offices based on national laws.
Urban centers as trafficking hotspots
The bigger cities Bangkok still remain as trafficking centers, primarily on sex and forced labor. Massage parlors, nightlife establishments and un-reported construction sites are not well regulated. Criminal communities use flaws to check the labor force and take advantage of poverty-based migratory patterns in nearby states.
Thai activists claim that its response remains not that homogenous. Whereas the victim support programs in some provinces are highly effective, others lack both qualified staff and political motivation, which leads to imbalanced protection of various areas around the country.
The broader security context
A whole-of-government approach
The Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has indicated that ISOC has to deal with broader dangers that include cybercrime, smuggling of drugs and illegal deforestation. The new anti-trafficking plan is only a component of a wider national security policy that would help in disorganizing organized crime as a whole.
The government attempts to combine these interconnected threats in a single approach by integrating the Ministry of Justice, Immigration Bureau and Anti-Money Laundering Office. The strategy is a sign of increased recognition that many trafficking rings intersect with other illegal economies.
The cybercrime connection
Call centre scams have shifted dramatically into cyberspace. Authorities note that scams now involve encrypted messaging, cryptocurrency laundering, and social engineering tactics. The digital dimension allows criminals to operate across borders with greater impunity.
In response, the Thai government has begun investing in cyber forensics training and forming dedicated task forces with international partners. Yet, critics argue that outdated data privacy laws and limited cross-border legal mechanisms continue to hinder enforcement.
Regional dynamics and international alignment
ASEAN’s anti-trafficking vision
Thailand’s strategy aligns with ASEAN’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) agenda, especially in advancing joint rescue protocols and intelligence sharing. The 2025 roadmap of the bloc suggests increased digitalization of the victim databases and unification between methods of treating victims and training the personnel of the borders.
This congruence on regional missions provides legitimacy and resources. It not only makes Thailand play on the defensive side, it also enables it to play offensively.
International partners and geopolitical implications
The fact that China has shown new interest in global peace and security in the region, especially in their Global Security Initiative, has been making countries such as Thailand build their anti-crime institutions. Geopolitical rivalries have made it hard to coordinate, but there are security objectives on which they have provided practical cooperation on the ground.
Likewise, Thailand is on course to engage Japan and EU in the area of labor rights and supply chain transparency that has created dialogue on whether more robust nondisclosure consequences should be executed on the consumer side on companies that source products in exploitative conditions.
Sustaining momentum beyond enforcement
The fact that Thailand succeeded in fighting trafficking and scamming is more than a police matter. Issues of structure, such as poverty, poor education, and low levels of labor protection remain the sustenance to criminal networks.
Migrants and women, being at-risk populations, are understudied and remain poorly financed to engage in educational campaigns. Enlightenment of communities on matters concerning their lives, and provision of the services is as important as the punishment accorded the traffickers.
Likewise, legal aid programs need expansion. Cases of non-cooperation with investigations on the part of many victims are attributable to fear of revenge or deportation. Better witness protection and if possible anonymity in court cases could raise the rate of conviction and decrease the rate of impunity.
Lessons and future directions
The five-point plan by Thailand is a pattern that is of interest to the other countries in Southeast Asia. It is characteristically different from previous interventions that only depended on public enforcement and media visibility.
There is still a long way to go. To avoid backsliding they will be required to monitor effectively, be well funded and independently controlled. Policy needs to struggle out of quasi-reactive nature into preventive, out of speech into systemic transition.
Thailand is in a crossroads. It has to choose between being a leader in the region in the fight against trafficking by institutionally transforming itself, or revert to inertia and corruption and waste the past gains. The next move may influence how the strategy to control crime in the region may be in the next few years.