The corporation of deceit: inside Asia’s scam centers of modern slavery

More than 2,000 captives were freed this week from a Myanmar compound built to look like a business park — but designed for human trafficking and online fraud.

A corporate façade for slavery

When Myanmar’s army stormed KK Park — a vast “business complex” on the Thai border — they uncovered more than 2,000 people trapped inside.

Lured by job offers in Thailand, men and women from across Asia and Africa had been trafficked across the border, stripped of their passports, and forced into digital slavery. Their task: to defraud strangers online through romance, investment, and cryptocurrency scams.

This wasn’t the first such rescue. In February, another 7,000 captives were freed from similar sites. Yet the business of deceit is booming — expanding faster than the authorities can shut it down.

A city built on lies

KK Park could easily be mistaken for a tech campus: 260 buildings spread across 210 hectares, complete with restaurants, villas, and manicured lawns. But behind the glass facades are barred dormitories, punishment cells, and computer-filled rooms where enslaved workers scam the world.

Most were tricked by fake job postings. Once in Myanmar, they were given a choice: work or die.

Dashima Ochirnimaeva, a 24-year-old from Russia, thought she’d been hired as a model in Bangkok. On arrival, her phone and passport were seized, and she was driven to KK Park to flirt online with men for money. She was rescued months later.

Others never returned. Vera Kravtsova, 26, from Belarus, disappeared after sending a voice message saying she was being taken to Myanmar. Her family later received a death notice claiming she’d died of a heart attack — and that her body had been cremated.

Scripts of seduction and deception

Inside the scam centers, everything runs on scripts. New recruits are taught to pose as investors, police officers, or lovers. They’re trained to build emotional trust, then extract money.

Oli, a 39-year-old Ethiopian, told Reuters he’d applied for an IT job in Thailand. Instead, he was trafficked to Myanmar, where he pretended to be “Alicia,” a Singaporean fashion designer. When victims demanded a video call, attractive women — or even AI-generated avatars — took over.

Some scammers pretended to be police officers warning victims of “criminal activity” on their bank accounts. KK Park even had fake police rooms for video chats.

When a scam succeeded, managers ordered workers to stand and applaud. In another center, every stolen dollar was celebrated with the strike of a gong.

Freedom costs $200,000

According to the U.S. Treasury, Americans are the main targets of these schemes, losing nearly $10 billion in 2024 — up 66% from the previous year.

Workers toil through the night to match U.S. daytime hours. They’re told they’ll earn freedom after 18 months if they bring in $200,000.

Those who fail are beaten with bamboo sticks, shocked with electric batons, starved, or threatened with organ harvesting.

One Bangladeshi man, Junaid Hossan Parbas, escaped by diving into a river after guards took a beaten colleague to an on-site doctor. He swam under gunfire, walked through the jungle, and eventually found the police.

Ransoms and family rescues

Others buy their way out. A Kazakh man trapped in a romance-scam compound was freed only after relatives paid $37,000.

According to The Global Initiative, over 100 Chinese families paid ransoms of $30,000–$50,000 in 2025 — often through brokers linked to local mafias.

Operation 1027

The UN estimates that at least 120,000 people are enslaved in Myanmar’s scam compounds.

These borderlands have long been outside government control, run by ethnic militias since the 1940s. After the 2021 military coup, Chinese crime syndicates moved in, striking deals with local warlords. Scam profits became a major source of funding for weapons and salaries.

When workers tried to flee a compound called Crouching Tiger Villa in 2023, guards opened fire, killing at least four — possibly dozens. Days later, three rebel armies launched Operation 1027, an offensive that freed thousands of captives and led to the arrest of members of the Ming crime family — one of Myanmar’s “Four Families” controlling the fraud empire.

By 2024, however, the industry had shifted south, to the Thai border. The Karen National Army, now sanctioned by the U.S. for human trafficking and cybercrime, controls many of these sites.

The actor who changed everything

On January 3, 2025, scammers abducted a little-known Chinese actor named Wang Xin, pretending to be agents from a Thai entertainment firm.

When his disappearance hit social media, outrage erupted across China. Celebrities joined the search, hashtags exploded, and state media took notice. Four days later, the scammers released him at the border — but the story had already gone viral.

Beijing demanded action. Thailand cut off electricity and fuel supplies to the region, though it later lifted the ban after shortages hit civilians.

Even so, pressure worked. In February, Karen rebel forces raided scam centers and freed 7,000 hostages, including several Russians.

An expanding empire

The February raids didn’t stop the boom. Within weeks, construction resumed.

Satellite imagery analyzed by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute showed KK Park and nearby centers expanding by 5.5 hectares per month. New dorms and offices rose across the borderlands, along with five new ferry crossings to move supplies and captives.

And still, the kidnappings continued. In June, another Chinese model, Zhong Hao Bin, was abducted for a supposed photoshoot in Thailand — then quickly released when social media erupted again.

The global spread

Experts warn that military raids alone won’t end the problem. As long as Myanmar remains unstable, scam centers will simply relocate — deeper inland or across borders.

Already, similar compounds operate in Cambodia, Laos, and the Philippines.

In August, South Korea banned travel to parts of Cambodia after the body of a Korean student was found — allegedly beaten to death in a scam compound. Cambodian police later freed 63 South Koreans, some kidnapped, others complicit.

Then, in October, the U.S. Justice Department confiscated 127,271 bitcoins — worth around $15 billion — from Cambodian tycoon Chen Zhi, the founder of Prince Holding Group. Prosecutors allege he not only ran scam centers but personally beat underperforming workers, recording their torture for his own archive.

The UN estimates up to 100,000 people are enslaved in Cambodian compounds; South Korea’s national security chief believes the real number could reach 200,000.

And the network is expanding — into Africa, the Pacific, and even the Persian Gulf.

The new face of slavery

What started as a niche cyber-fraud scheme has evolved into a multinational system of enslavement — powered by deception, technology, and indifference.

Behind every fake investment offer or online romance may be a captive — forced to smile, type, and celebrate when someone halfway around the world loses their savings.

“You’re talking about human beings running a machine of fraud,” one UN investigator said. “They’re not just stealing money. They’re stealing lives.”