Scam compounds are popping up "out of nowhere"

The common perception of a scam centre is possibly a floor of an office space in a country like Nigeria or India, rented out and filled with computers, manned by people making dozens of calls a day to try and convince victims to hand over their money.

It's much, much bigger than that, and much darker too.

While many workers may be doing so voluntarily with the promise of making a good income, others have been forced into into working within so-called "scam compounds". In south east Asia, it is claimed that around 300,000 people are trafficked to work in such facilities, which the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime claims can even operate from within prisons and detenton centres.

These compounds are also reportedly growing at a rapid pace. Wired has been analysing satellite images in Myanmar, where it claims more than two dozen scam compounds have been built or significantly expanded in the first six months of 2026. Often operated by Chinese organised crime groups, they are growing in south east Asian countries like Cambodia, Laos and the aformentioned Myanmar, focusing or cryptocurrency and romance scams.

The issue is that if a compound is raided, operations can easily be moved due to the number of sites running, and more compounds can be built. The UK Government is taking action to crack down on scam centres in south east Asia, issuing sanctions against countries where online fraud and human rights abuses are taking place, though as Mechelle B. Moore, the CEO of the anti-trafficking nonprofit Global Alms Incorporated told Wired: “Nothing has changed, unfortunately... it's just growing.”