What Is a Scam Compound? Inside the Scam Centres of Southeast Asia

When you get a "wrong number" text from a friendly stranger, or meet someone online who later talks you into a crypto investment, there is a good chance the person typing is sitting in a scam compound thousands of kilometres away. Often, that person was trafficked there.

The UN human rights office reported in February 2026 that at least 300,000 people are working in scam operations across Southeast Asia, from at least 66 countries. It estimated these operations earn about $64 billion a year worldwide, with more than $43.8 billion in the Mekong region alone.

What is a scam compound?

A scam compound (also called a scam centre or scam park) is a closed, guarded complex where online fraud is run like a business. From the outside it may look like an office park, a hotel or a casino. Inside there are:

• Office floors full of desks, phones and computers, organised into teams with managers.
• Dormitories, canteens and shops, so workers rarely need to leave.
• Walls, gates and guards, which keep workers in rather than keeping outsiders out.

Most compounds are in border areas of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, where enforcement is weak. The UN says about 74% of scam compounds identified by satellite imagery are in the Mekong region. When one is raided or exposed, operations often move to another country.

Who works in a scam compound?

There are three broad groups:

1. Bosses and managers who run the business, set targets and handle the money.
2. Workers who chose the job, sometimes knowing it is fraud, sometimes misled about what they would do.
3. Trafficked workers who were tricked with fake job offers and cannot leave. They come from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and dozens of other countries.

Recruiters prefer people who can type, speak English and use a computer, such as graduates and IT workers. Read how the recruitment works in our guide to fake job offers abroad.

How a scam compound operates

Thanks to whistleblowers such as Redbull, who leaked 25 scripts and guides plus about three months of WhatsApp screen recordings to WIRED, we know a lot about how the work is organised.

1. Shifts timed to the victims

In the leaked compound, workers did 15-hour night shifts so they would be awake during US daytime. Targets were mostly Indian-American men, and scammers were matched to victims of their own ethnicity.

2. Fake profiles

Workers built profiles of rich, attractive single women, complete with a fake daily routine ("7 am peaceful yoga, 9:30 self-care and vacation planning, 6 pm dinner with mother"). Deepfake tools or hired models were used for video calls.

3. Scripts and AI

A list of "100 chat topics" kept conversations going. ChatGPT and DeepSeek were used to polish messages. Scripts even told workers how to recast a bank's fraud warning as "the bank just doesn't want to lose a customer". Scammers sometimes mentioned scams themselves, to seem trustworthy.

4. A sales funnel for stealing

The compound had its own vocabulary: a "first chat", then a "deep chat", then "opening a customer" (the first theft), then "recharge" (taking more from the same person). This is the classic pig butchering scam, usually ending on a fake crypto trading platform.

5. Quotas and rewards

Teams had quotas of around $1 million a month. A drum was struck for any theft of $100,000 or more, and colored flags showed which teams were meeting quota. In Redbull's leak, more than 30 workers stole about $2.2 million in 11 weeks, and one theft of $338,000 was celebrated.

How workers are controlled

Scam compounds are, as Erin West of Operation Shamrock told WIRED, "a slave colony that's trying to pretend it's a company." Control works through:

• Confiscated passports and restricted phones.
• Debt: workers are told they owe money for travel and recruitment.
• Fines: in the leaked compound, a salary of 3,500 yuan (about $500) was eaten by fines, such as 50 yuan for no first chat, 200 yuan for sleeping at the desk, 1,000 yuan for a false report, doubled for refusing to sign, and canteen access cut for seven days.
• Violence: the UN documented torture, sexual abuse, food and sleep deprivation, and shifts of up to 19 hours a day.
• Ransom: families are sometimes forced to pay large sums for release.

How much money do scam compounds steal?

The losses are enormous. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported $20.9 billion in losses from about 1.01 million complaints in 2025. Crypto-related losses were $11.4 billion, including $7.2 billion in crypto investment fraud, the type of scam compounds are known for. People aged 60 and over lost $4.4 billion in crypto-related scams.

In India, over 24 lakh cybercrime complaints were filed on the national portal in 2025, with about ₹22,495 crore reported lost.

Red flags that you may be talking to a scam compound

• A stranger messages you "by mistake" and keeps chatting (see wrong-number text scams).
• A perfect, wealthy online match who never meets in person.
• Lots of talk about their lifestyle, then about a special investment app.
• Small dramas (a car accident, a sick relative) that build sympathy.
• Pressure to ignore your bank's warnings.
• Small early "profits" that encourage bigger deposits.

More signs are in our romance scam red flags guide.

What to do

If you are being scammed

1. Stop sending money and stop replying.
2. Save screenshots, usernames, wallet addresses and transaction IDs.
3. Report it. India: call 1930 or use cybercrime.gov.in. US: ic3.gov and ReportFraud.ftc.gov. UK: Report Fraud (reportfraud.police.uk, 0300 123 2040). Singapore: ScamShield Helpline 1799.
4. Beware of recovery scams that promise to get your money back for a fee.

If someone you love may be trapped in a compound

1. Contact your country's embassy in that country. Indian families can register on the MEA's MADAD portal.
2. File a police complaint against the recruiter at home.
3. In the US, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
4. Do not pay ransoms without talking to the embassy and police first.

The UN calls on governments to treat trafficked scam workers as victims, under the "non-punishment principle". As Redbull put it: "When a lot of Red Bulls speak in this world, it will help to make things better." If you need help now, visit our help page or report a scam.