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📂 **Category**: Security,Security / Security News,Eyes Up
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More than two Dozens of suspected new fraudulent complexes in war-torn Myanmar have been built or dramatically expanded in the past six months, according to satellite images and analysis of the area reviewed by WIRED. The apparent growth in criminal operations suggests that the alleged crackdown on the sites last year has done little to stop the highly lucrative fraud industry.
At least 25 alleged fraudulent websites have popped up in Myanmar’s Myawaddy region, near the country’s border with Thailand, since around the beginning of the year, according to a satellite image analysis by the International Justice Mission, an anti-human trafficking nonprofit. The images show how land has been flattened and swaths of forest destroyed, eventually replaced by dozens of buildings and infrastructure needed to operate large-scale scams.
“Some were skeptical that the crackdowns last year were real, and these images show that they were,” says Eric Heintz, a global analyst at IJM, who focuses on the impact of fraud vehicles and analyzes suspected sites. “Although this campaign has disrupted operations, the scale of these new developments appears to be more than sufficient to accommodate what was destroyed last year.”
Over the past decade, fraud vehicles have emerged on a large scale across Southeast Asian countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. These sites, often run by Chinese organized crime groups, are responsible for large portions of global online fraud — and are involved in the theft of billions of dollars through sophisticated cryptocurrency and romance scams targeting victims in the United States and around the world.
While overseen by criminal bosses, much of the daily scam — which involves cold calling thousands of potential victims on social media, gaining their trust over time, and cashing out stolen money — is carried out by human trafficking victims. People from more than 60 countries have been lured to the region with false promises of work and then forced to defraud people 24/7. Many have their passports taken, are beaten if they refuse to work, and have little chance of escaping. Hundreds of thousands of human trafficking victims have been scammed into the complexes in recent years.
The industrial-scale fraud has turned into a global crisis, with a raft of international sanctions issued against those allegedly involved or linked to operations in Myanmar and Cambodia last year. Starting around October, ahead of the country’s elections, Myanmar’s junta raided some well-known compounds, displaying explosive buildings and phones and computers used in scams.
However, these eye-catching efforts appear to have done little to prevent massive fraud companies from operating and scamming new victims. Michelle P. Moore, CEO of the anti-trafficking nonprofit Global Alms Incorporated, which is based in Thailand near the border with Myanmar, says her group has identified at least a dozen new sites, and some groups have repopulated previously raided areas. “There are some buildings that are sitting empty, but there’s a lot of construction going on at the end of last year that no one saw,” Moore says.
Some of the new and expanded compounds identified by Heintz, first noted by The Associated Press in June, appear to be in the early stages around the time of the crackdown, but other work began around January, the researcher says. “The pace of construction is great, and some of it will go from empty fields to operational complexes within a couple of months,” says Heintz. (The Myanmar Embassy in London did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.)
Satellite images viewed by WIRED show how buildings have been created within the green space, with about two dozen buildings appearing in one location between January and April. Other satellite images show how large numbers of trees have been removed to make way for buildings, with roads and what may be houses being built around the sites. Clusters of large buildings, likely residences for trafficking victims, have appeared at several sites.
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