There is a human trafficking crisis in Southeast Asia. The UN estimates that 120,000 people have been trafficked to scam centres in Myanmar and another 100,000 in Cambodia. Many of them are brought through the border with Thailand. The victims are often forced to work as scammers, defrauding billions of dollars from unsuspecting targets across the world. These scam syndicates have been linked to the Chinese mafia as well as local rebels in Myanmar.
How do these scam centres operate? Who are the trafficking victims and how did they end up in this predicament? How is Thailand’s economy suffering from these trafficking networks, and what is being done to stamp them out? Insight investigates.
00:00 Introduction
01:22 Chinese victim in Myanmar’s scam factory
03:34 Why Southeast Asia is breeding ground for scams
06:23 High-profile kidnap of Chinese actor
07:52 Why war-torn Myanmar attracts scam kingpins
13:26 Changing demographic of trafficked victims 15:23 What happens inside scam centres
23:47 The voluntary scammers
25:21 How scams work
29:34 Romance gone wrong
34:49 China’s role in scam crackdown
37:21 What’s Thailand doing to fight scammers
Shoppers look at fruits at the Central Group Vietnam’s Big C supermarket in Hanoi. Photo by Reuters/Kham.
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