The term fraud factory first appeared in a 2022 Sydney Morning Herald article about the Southeast Asian scams and human trafficking industry[2] and was coined by Jan Santiago of the Global Anti-Scam Organization (GASO), a victims advocacy group, in describing scamming operations in the region.[3][4]
The term was used by Kenya's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the activity of trafficking victims to Asia where they use digital media to meet westerners and sell them cryptocurrencies.[5] In Chinese, the term "fraud industrial park" (Chinese: 詐騙園區; pinyin: zhàpiàn yuánqū; lit. 'fraud park zone') has emerged in reference to these operations.[citation needed]
Organization and ownership
Fraud factories are often operated by Chinese criminal gangs based in Southeast Asia.[6] The gang's traditional revenue stream of gambling reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic and their activities increasingly focus on fraud factories to regain lost revenue.[6]
Between August and late September 2022, the Kenyan embassy to Thailand facilitated the rescue of 76 trafficking victims.[5] The victims were mostly Kenyan, and included Ugandans and a Burundian.[5] The criminal gangs who operate the fraud factories target young and educated Africans.[5] In November 2022, one Kenyan died after a botched organ harvesting operation associated with a fraud factory in Myanmar.[7][5]
In late 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Office estimated that at least 120,000 people in Myanmar were trafficked there and are being held in online scam compounds. At least 100,000 people are being held in similar circumstances in Cambodia. Other operations were also being run in Laos, the Philippines and Thailand.[13][14]
In 2022, BBC News reported the locations of fraud factories as being in Laos and Myanmar, notably in Kachin where the Kachin conflict is occurring, a factor that makes rescues difficult.[5] In 2022, The Japan Times reported that factories which initially started operations in Cambodia later switched locations to Laos, and that victims were held in special economic zones in Laos and Myanmar, specifically in Myawaddy, as well as casinos in Cambodia, particularly in Sihanoukville.[6][15] The trafficked victims are lured with job offers, with the BBC reporting one victim having traveled to Thailand for a job before being driven to Laos.[5]
Fraud factory workers are trained to create online social media and dating personas, which they use to build up trust with westerners and engage in fake romance scams, with the goal of encouraging the westerners to buy cryptocurrencies.[5][6] The targets of the bait and switch cyber crime were predominantly US citizens.[5] The process of fraudulently building up trust with victims online in order to sell them cryptocurrencies is known as "pig butchering".[6]
The trafficked Kenyans were prevented from leaving unless they paid 1.2 million Kenyan shillings and were threatened with forced sex work and organ harvesting if they did not meet work performance targets.[5] Two victims who spoke to the BBC were rescued by Awareness Against Human Trafficking.[5]
Traffickers confiscate their victims’ passports. Some trafficking victims have returned to Kenya with broken limbs, from beatings by their captors.[5] Vietnamese charity organization Blue Dragon reported that trafficking victims forced to work in scamming operations in Myanmar, are forced to sell their organs if they fail to meet quotas.[16]
During the Myanmar civil war, the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched Operation 1027 against the Myanmar military regime on 27 October 2023, with one of the intended goals being to eradicate scam centers in the Kokang Self-Administered Zone along the northeastern border with China, which had grown frustrated with the Myanmar government's lack of response against fraud factories.[17][18] On 5 January 2024, the alliance fully captured the city of Laukkai in Kokang from the Myanmar military, and by late January claimed to have handed more than 3,000 scam suspects to China since the operation began.[19][20]
In March 2024, the head of Interpol estimated that the combined profits of Southeast Asian organized crime networks were $2 to $3 trillion per year, with a typical criminal organization making $50 billion per year.[21]
Defensive criminal actions
Scam compounds are able to continue operating even though their locations are known, by bribing local law enforcement and politicians.[22] As of 2024, organizations had allegedly harassed at least one researcher, using deep fakes to impersonate his father over phone and video chats, after stealing his phone number.[22]
Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar in Southeast Asia are known fraud factory destinations.[9] These countries are particularly vulnerable due to their strategic location next to China and weak law enforcement.[23] Below are known cyber scam hotspots:
In November 2023, China issued arrest warrants for junta-aligned Ming Xuecheng, and three other Ming family members for their involvement in online scamming operations.[25] Ming later committed suicide. The other three were captured by Burmese authorities and handed to China.[26]
^Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kenya) (16 Nov 2022). "16 November 2022 Tweet". Twitter. Retrieved 2022-11-26. Already one young Kenyan has died as a result of a botched operation by quack doctors operating in the Chinese run factories in Myanmar