Ethiopian citizens trafficked to scam centres in Myanmar and later sent to Thailand show injuries sustained after being tortured for not meeting assigned targets in Tak province, Thailand, in February, 2025.Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters
Meseret Mulu still struggles with the physical and psychological wounds of her ordeal. In a year of captivity at a compound in Myanmar, the 27-year-old Ethiopian says, she was routinely beaten, stripped and left naked outside for hours under a searing sun.
Thousands of young Africans and Asians like Ms. Meseret have been forced into “scam camps” in Southeast Asia – the common term for guarded compounds where migrants are confined by human-trafficking syndicates. Inside the camps, they toil for long hours on social-media platforms, targeting unsuspecting people with cryptocurrency and romance scams.
Beatings, sexual violence and even electrocutions are routinely used to keep the scam workers compliant and the profits flowing.
“Seeing bloodied grown men cry and beg for the whippings to stop was hard,” Ms. Meseret said. “I still see it in my sleep.”
Lured by the promise of high-paying jobs in Thailand, migrants are transported across borders to poorer countries and forced to live in what are essentially sweatshops with rows of computers, controlled by Chinese criminal syndicates.
The scamming rings are now a multibillion-dollar industry with hundreds of compounds across Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. The United Nations estimates that some 120,000 people had been trafficked into Burmese scam camps by 2023. The U.S. government says Americans have lost more than US$16.6-billion to the Southeast Asian scamming industry.
Cambodia allowing ‘slavery and torture’ in scam compounds, report says
Several Western governments have issued warnings about job offers in Thailand. The Canadian government’s current travel advisory for that country cites the risk of “being kidnapped and forced to work for scams or trafficked into neighbouring countries.”
Africans from many countries are among the victims. The South African government confirmed last month that 14 South Africans were in Thai detention after being released from scam camps recently. One man told South African media that he was forced to work 13 hours a day under the threat of beatings if he stopped.
In Ms. Meseret’s case, the gang running the compound was collaborating with fighters from the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), a Burmese armed group allied with Myanmar’s junta. It is one of several military factions accused of helping the scam camps. Capitalizing on Myanmar’s chaos after civil war erupted in 2021, the gangs often set up their camps near the Thai border, hiring rebels or pro-junta forces as security.
An Ethiopian citizen (left) and a Bangladeshi citizen, who were trafficked into working at scam centres demonstrate how they were punished and tortured during an interview with Reuters at a shelter in Tak province.Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters
In Ethiopia, a group of survivors of the camps has created a support group called the “M Family” to provide advice on coping with injuries or trauma and to help file legal cases against members of Chinese criminal organizations. The group allowed The Globe and Mail to see photos of injuries that migrants suffered from electrocutions and beatings at scam compounds in DKBA territory, near Kayin State’s Myawaddy Township.
Ms. Meseret, who saw the photos, told The Globe the injuries are typical of what she witnessed. Men were whipped for hours while suspended from ceilings for failing to meet a monthly scam quota, she said.
She was finally freed in September. Under pressure from local aid organizations, the operators abandoned the compound, leaving her and dozens of other migrants stranded in Kayin State. With the help of the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency, they were transferred to Thailand and then to their home countries.
The scam-camp trafficking groups in Southeast Asia typically use advertisements on social-media platforms such as Telegram and WhatsApp to recruit migrants with the promise of well-paying jobs at tech firms in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
“It’s very convincing,” said Birhanu Atomsa, a 33-year-old Ethiopian who worked for seven months in a scam compound until he was freed last March.
“I had a job interview by video call. They were in a fancy office, and I could see laptops, expensive furniture and even treadmills that they said were for employees to stay in shape. They promised they’d reimburse my airfare.”
Once in Bangkok, however, the recruits are usually driven to the border and forced to cross on foot into war-ravaged Myanmar.
“As I had never been to Thailand, I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I had been driven all the way to a river at the border,” Mr. Birhanu told The Globe.
“Once we got there, they confiscated my passport and phone. We began walking toward the river. I stopped and demanded answers about where we were going. That was the first time I was threatened. They said they would kill me there and dump my body if I didn’t go with them.”
Later, he said, he witnessed gang members negotiating the sale of two Pakistani and Ugandan migrants to camps. “We were like cattle. If you have many visible whip marks on your body, you won’t be sold for a higher price because they’ll know you aren’t an earner.”
Last November, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on the DKBA and several Chinese businesses in Thailand that allegedly served as fronts for the scam camps. It cited the DKBA’s collaboration with criminals who inflicted brutal punishment on trafficking victims.
The DKBA denies that it profits from scam camps or assists them. It posted a statement on its Facebook page promising to arrest anyone transporting foreigners in DKBA territory.
However, satellite imagery of the Deko Park compound, where Ethiopian, Ugandan, Pakistani and Tanzanian nationals reportedly suffered electrocutions and beatings, confirms that the camp is in DKBA-controlled territory.
People from China, Vietnam and Ethiopia, believed to have been trafficked and forced to work in scam centers, sit with their faces masked while in detention after being released from the centers in Myawaddy district in eastern Myanmar, Feb. 26, 2025.Thanaphon Wuttison/The Associated Press
Analysis of the location via the Sentinel Hub’s EO Browser imagery shows that the compound – a massive, walled complex of more than 30 buildings, with dozens of vehicles parked inside – is located barely 100 metres from the Thai border. It was built between October, 2024, and April, 2025, while DKBA forces patrolled the vicinity.
The DKBA and the Burmese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to e-mailed questions from The Globe. The junta said last year that it had a “zero tolerance” policy for scamming.
Habtamu Melese, a 32-year-old Ethiopian civil engineering graduate, went missing for 18 months after flying to Thailand. “He was tricked by an old classmate who told him he’d get him a high-paying job in Bangkok,” said his brother, Mengaw.
“They tortured him because he didn’t meet targets. He spoke about it being so bad, he wanted to die. Our entire family suffered. My mother would spend her days crying at church.”
In November, Mr. Habtamu was among dozens of Ethiopians who were freed in Myanmar and transferred to Thailand with the help of the Bangkok-based Civil Society Network for Human Trafficking Victims Assistance (CSNHTV). The group has helped rescue more than 130 trafficking victims from scam compounds since October, including many Africans.
Mr. Habtamu and other rescued Ethiopians have been confined to a migrant detention centre in Thailand while they try to raise money for airfare home.
Hundreds of rescued victims from African countries – including Ethiopia, Uganda and Burundi – have been left stranded in Thailand. Their home countries are reluctant to pay for repatriations, and their families often cannot afford the cost of the return flights and the immigration fines levied by Thai officials.
Ethiopian Airlines, usually the only airline available to fly migrants from Bangkok to African countries, has placed a daily three-passenger limit on non-Ethiopian trafficking victims on its flights, citing unspecified “security reasons,” according to CSNHTV. Many rescued Africans have been trapped in Thailand for weeks or months as a result.
The Globe asked Ethiopian Airlines for comment, but it did not respond.
With a report from Geoffrey York in Johannesburg
Special to The Globe and Mail