Hundreds of Thousands Trafficked To Work as Online Scammers in Southeast Asia, Says UN Report

Hundreds of thousands of people are being forcibly engaged by organised criminal gangs into online criminality in Southeast Asia - from romance-investment scams and crypto fraud to illegal gambling - a report issued today by the UN Human Rights Office shows. From a report: Victims face a range of serious violations and abuses, including threats to their safety and security; and many have been subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary detention, sexual violence, forced labour, and other human rights abuses, the report says. "People who are coerced into working in these scamming operations endure inhumane treatment while being forced to carry out crimes. They are victims. They are not criminals," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

"In continuing to call for justice for those who have been defrauded through online criminality, we must not forget that this complex phenomenon has two sets of victims." The enormity of online scam trafficking in Southeast Asia is difficult to estimate, the reports says, because of the clandestine nature and gaps in the official response. Credible sources indicate that at least 120,000 people across Myanmar may be held in situations where they are forced to carry out online scams, with estimates in Cambodia similarly at around 100,000. Other States in the region, including Lao PDR, the Philippines and Thailand, have also been identified as main countries of destination or transit where at least tens of thousands of people have been involved. The scam centres generate revenue amounting to billions of US dollars each year.

Excellent article on pig butchering

[crgrace]

This is an excellent book excerpt that goes into some detail on the scam and how it is enabled by cryptocurrency (and how the industrialized scam rose as a response to pandemic restrictions).

https://archive.is/mZR8o [archive.is]

Yep, my SIL got dragged into this

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

My sister-in-law got suckered into doing something like this, only it was translation work of some sketchy documents from another criminal group. She was being forcibly held in Myanmar after being brought across the border against her will.

She managed to make a post to a friend on facebook who in turn appealed to Hun Sen (as she's a Cambodian citizen) and his sister to help. They eventually did, and the Cambodian embassy contacted the Thai embassy, who rustled up some cops and busted the place, freeing her and a bunch of other people as well.

The owner/operators will 100% go to jail and may even face the death penalty for human trafficking.

Only one possible solution: Forbid IT work!

[ffkom]

According to the not-so-small group of people who claim to speak on behalf of sex workers, the only solution to the problem of some people being forced to work in that profession is to forbid sex work entirely. So likewise, there cannot be possibly a solution to dry out that cesspool of forced IT work than by closing down the entire IT industry, right? Anyone saying otherwise clearly is a heartless monster not concerned with those poor, trafficked, forced IT workers.

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[Petersko]

Equally valid is the claim that the only way to prevent forced labour in garment factories is to outlaw making clothing.

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[budsetr]

But wait! To prevent outlaws we must outlaw outlawing.

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[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

If we outlaw outlawing then only the outlaws will be... oh... hm.

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[DrMrLordX]

Eliminating sex trafficking would only make business better for "sex workers" who are operating independently.

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[ffkom]

Eliminating sex trafficking would only make business better for "sex workers" who are operating independently.

It certainly would. But improving business for independent sex workers is not what those anti-prostitution lobby groups want, for them the existence of forced/trafficked laborers is just a welcome pretense for promoting their unrelated agenda.

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[DrMrLordX]

Most prostitution is already illegal in these countries with anti sex-trafficking groups.

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[PPH]

Oh dear God no!

My state is actively working to move our "sex workers" (dancers, strippers and whatever goes with that) from the category of independent contractors, responsible for their own behavior, to employees. To keep them under control of club management. A movement that was spearheaded by one of our most upstanding citizens, Frank Colacurcio [wikipedia.org].

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[timeOday]

Please do go ahead and forbid internet fraud. No more spamming. No more catfishing. No more election interference.

Make it so #1!

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[ffkom]

Please do go ahead and forbid internet fraud.

I would be surprised if there was a single country on earth where Internet fraud was a legal business. Just like "forced prostitution" or "human trafficking" is not legal anywhere (at least officially, for private enterprises). But applying the contorted logic of anti-prostitution lobby groups here, all IT workers are emotionally damaged by their work, and only work in IT because they are under severe pressure to do so.

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[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

Nigeria.

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[nightflameauto]

But applying the contorted logic of anti-prostitution lobby groups here, all IT workers are emotionally damaged by their work, and only work in IT because they are under severe pressure to do so.

While there may be some argument to be made that all people who work in IT are emotionally damaged to start with, the job certainly doesn't help with that situation. The rest of what you said seems true enough.

If I could be paid for playing guitar, building shit with Lego, writing crazy out-there sci-fi, or riding a bicycle, I'd do it. But, shit IT work pays the bills. Too bad. I used to actually like working on computers.

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[posixively_true]

Scammers just need to set this bit and everything will be fine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

US attitude

[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

... They are victims.

The US "tough on" criminals attitude means, if you commit a crime, you are the problem. The unwillingness to find a ring-leader means the crime-boss can acquire a new bunch of vulnerable people and do business (crime) as usual.

... clandestine nature and gaps ...

Part of the Asian culture is, it's not a problem until someone important complains.

Easy to solve

[backslashdot]

I get a ton of crap on WhatsApp, phone, and other platforms peddling various scams. I feel like this would be extremely easy to shut down on the whatsapp side. Make it costly to contact more than a certain number of people, add more than a certain number of people to a group unsolicited — tons of ways to implement that. Also take “Report & Block” seriously. Plus, they should be cool to block certain IPs .. yes I know IPs can be shared .. too bad. If your ISP or company has morons in i

Ban crypto

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Cybercrime's a whole lot harder to do without crypto. In practice, crypto doesn't have many legitimate uses & the vast majority of uses are speculation/gambling & cybercrime. It would be no great loss if it disappeared from the world tomorrow. Just ban crypto so that it's impossible for victims to get access to it to pay the scammers, blackmailers, traffickers, etc..