Southeast Asia’s billion-dollar scam industry now threatens children. Where is the response?

Eric Heintz is a Global Analyst at the International Justice Mission, a global organisation working to stop slavery and violence

The world has begun to awaken to the horrors of the now notorious scam compounds in Southeast Asia – industrial-scale operations run by organised crime gangs where trafficked individuals are forced to conduct online scams, generating billions of dollars. 

But new research just released by International Justice Mission (IJM) reveals a disturbing new dimension to this fast-evolving crisis: these scam compounds are now likely involved in financially motivated sexual extortion of children, also known as sextortion.   

With children likely caught in the crossfire of scam compound activity, surely now is the time to act.

Financial sextortion of children typically involves perpetrators coercing children into sending sexual images, then blackmailing them for money.

The psychological toll on children is devastating. The trauma of sextortion can lead to self-harm, isolation, and even suicide.

IJM’s new research, funded by Safe Online with additional support from the Thomson Reuters Social Impact Institute, linked nearly 500 global reports of child sextortion to Southeast Asian scam compounds in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

These scam compounds have become a billion-dollar criminal industry, largely using cryptocurrency ‘pig-butchering’ scams to lure victims around the world into losing money and, in some cases, their life savings. These criminal activities are evolving. 

Now, this new research suggests that these scam compounds may also be contributing to the global explosion of sextortion - including of children  over the last three years.

Many of the people working inside the scam compounds are victims themselves.

Trafficked under the guise of legitimate job offers, they are stripped of their passports, often confined under armed guard, and subjected to brutal punishments - including electrocution - if they fail to meet quotas. 

Forced to work 12 to 16 hours a day under surveillance, they are trapped in a form of modern slavery. Now it appears that human trafficking victims at these compounds may be coerced into running financial sextortion scams which have impacted children.

Not only does this pose a threat to child safety online, it’s a convergence of two devastating forms of exploitation: human trafficking and child sexual abuse, driven by profit and enabled by digital platforms.

This convergence of child sexual exploitation and human trafficking is not just alarming - it demands urgent global attention and deeper investigation by law enforcement, tech companies and global governments.  

New data sheds light on troubling trend 

Tools to better identify this troubling crime are available. My colleague and I analysed CyberTipline data from the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) against IP addresses and internet activity patterns that match known scam compound locations. 

We found that at least 493 CyberTipline Reports are likely linked to forced scamming locations, and 18,017 CyberTipline Reports contained IP addresses used by devices in forced scamming locations - which indicates there are potentially many more than the initial 493 cases identified. 

At least 40 locations throughout Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar associated with forced scamming were found to have links to financial sextortion of children.

While the 493 matched cases represent a small fraction of the 1.18 million online enticement reports made to NCMEC globally during the study period, limitations to available data mean this is likely just the tip of the iceberg.

We’ve shown that the tools exist to identify these links - now law enforcement, tech companies and governments need to use them to uncover the full extent of this crisis and protect both children and trafficked adults. 

A global threat needs global action

Understanding the scale of the problem, and tackling it, will require bold action: better data sharing, sharper detection tools, and stronger international cooperation.

We know where these scam compounds are. We know how they operate. What’s missing is the coordinated global response to shut them down.

Governments must treat scam compounds as transnational organised crime hubs. That means launching joint investigations, allocating resources to dismantle networks, and prosecuting those responsible.

Law enforcement must prioritise victim identification and support - ensuring that trafficked individuals aren’t criminalised for crimes they were forced to commit. 

It’s also crucial that authorities conducting victim screening give victims the opportunity to share about the kinds of scams that they were made to carry out, to increase understanding of how activities at the compounds are evolving.

Tech companies also have a critical role to play. Platforms must invest in tools to flag suspicious behaviour, collaborate with NGOs and law enforcement, and act swiftly and transparently on user reports. The infrastructure exists - it’s time to use it.

We could be looking at a new frontier of organised online abuse — one that exploits both children and trafficking victims. The urgency is real. Now we must act.