Forced Criminality

WHAT IS FORCED CRIMINALITY?

Forced criminality is a form of human trafficking in which individuals are coerced, deceived, or compelled through violence or threats to commit illegal acts, such as fraud, theft, or cybercrime. Instead of being treated as offenders, victims of forced criminality are recognized by international law as exploited persons who acted under coercion.

Scam compounds are large, often highly organized facilities, primarily in parts of Southeast Asia, where people recruited through fake job offers are detained and forced to run online scams, including fraud, phishing, and crypto schemes. These compounds operate as human trafficking hubs that combine forced labor, violence, and digital crime under criminal networks and corrupt local actors.

THEORIZING SCAM COMPOUNDS

Racial Capitalism describes how marginalized, often racialized, populations are exploited for economic gain. In scam compounds, those most victimized are migrants from Myanmar, Vietnam, China, and the Philippines, many trafficked into these sites. Christina Sharpe argues that the ongoing harms of racialized violence continue to shape lives today. Sharpe prompts us to consider how scam workers are positioned as both victims and threats. While portrayed as predatory, many are themselves subjected to violence, coercion, and manipulation for the benefit of the criminal enterprises controlling the compounds. Understanding trafficking within a longer continuum of racial subjugation reveals the complex identities of those who may be both workers and victims. This perspective underscores the importance of centering trafficked individuals’ experiences while examining the power structures that trap them and create conditions making certain people more vulnerable to exploitation.

Biopolitics: In Foucault’s theory of biopolitics, states exercise power by regulating life and death, determining who may live freely, who is controlled, and whose lives are treated as expendable. In scam compounds, this is evident: workers’ lives are controlled through surveillance, restricted movement, quotas, punishment, and the constant threat of violence. Their survival becomes a tool to extract labor and facilitate scams. Foucault emphasizes that states regulate populations through surveillance, categorization, and bureaucratic management. Trafficked bodies in scam compounds are similarly managed, through databases, legal classifications, immigration controls, and productivity monitoring.

Surveillance Capitalism: As described by Franceschini et al.,  the labor regime operating within scam compounds and the broader scam industry is coercive, trapping both trafficked victims and workers who initially entered willingly. Individuals are often prevented from leaving and are subjected to “round-the-clock surveillance and disciplined through the constant threat of arbitrary physical violence” (Franceschini et al, 2023). Even those who were not initially coerced find themselves unable to exit, exposed to violence, and intentionally isolated. Conditions are structured to prevent workers from forming solidarity or building supportive relationships, leaving people cut off from community and with no clear path to escape. Shoshana Zuboff  provides an important framework for understanding these dynamics. She writes that “Surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for trans- lation” (Zubboff, 2019).

THE MONEY CHAIN

While money chains vary between scam compounds, these networks are clearly vast, intricate, and span multiple sectors. Even research on a single compound or related court cases shows that billions are generated through various forms of illicit activity. A compound’s primary business might be online casinos or cryptocurrency scams, but many also coerce workers into prostitution or sextortion schemes and exploit the families of trafficked individuals. These operations often cross borders, with political figures and associates receiving millions, further expanding the money chain and underground economy.

A few organizations have attempted to quantify the scale and profits of this industry, underscoring the need for centralized documentation and regulation. A UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) technical policy briefing published in October 2024 assessed the proceeds generated by people working in the cyber-enabled fraud industry and reported significant regional losses:

“One estimate provided by regional law enforcement based on the estimated labour force suggests that the cyber-enabled fraud industry in Southeast Asia generates between US $27.4 billion and $36.5 billion annually. This estimate is based on the number of people working in scam compounds and the average amount of proceeds generated by each individual. While this estimate offers a different perspective and also highlights the sheer scale of the scam industry in the region, there are uncertainties regarding both the estimated number of trafficked victims and the average amount of money generated by each individual” (UNODC, p. 22).

Understanding and enforcing regulations in this landscape is challenging, as transactions are difficult to trace and legal frameworks vary across regions. Scam compounds often operate online gambling sites as part of broader “pig-butchering” schemes, where coerced workers create fake profiles on dating apps, cryptocurrency networks, and gambling platforms to deceive people into investing or wagering money. For example, in Indonesia, over 3 million citizens are estimated to participate in online gambling involving more than US $20 billion, prompting the creation of a cross-ministry Online Gambling Eradication Task Force in April 2024 (UNODC, p. 32).

Money laundering networks also move illicit funds across multiple groups. Blockchain analytic projects demonstrate:

“Interconnected networks spanning multiple scams… appear to be operating multiple scams either in succession or in conjunction” (UNODC, p. 49).

The report further notes:

“The average amount received by addresses linked to one of the scammers depicted in the chart above was approximately US $26.8 million, with the median around US $5.1 million. Far from being the work of lone scammers, over half of the pig-butchering schemes studied by TRM exhibited apparent links to large transnational organized crime groups engaged in human trafficking networks operating in several Southeast Asian countries” (UNODC, p. 49).

These findings highlight the vast scale of transnational networks, the massive flow of money though the underground market, adn the extensive money chain. 

POLICIES AND COMPARATIVE MODELS

Addressing scam compounds as a trafficking market requires policy that recognizes these operations not simply as cybercrime hubs, but as sites of forced labor and coercion under international trafficking law. Global bodies such as the UNODC and OHCHR have emphasized that people lured by fake overseas job offers and compelled to commit online fraud meet the definition of trafficking under the Palermo Protocol, which obligates states to prevent recruitment, protect victims, and prosecute traffickers. Effective responses demand cross-border cooperation, including joint investigations, shared intelligence, and coordinated rescue as well as safe-return protocols, especially across Southeast Asian states where compounds are concentrated. International guidance also stresses the non-punishment principle, meaning victims should not be criminalized for the fraud or immigration violations they were forced to commit, which is a major failure in many current responses.

In the United States, federal anti-trafficking law (TVPA) already covers forced criminality, but implementation is inconsistent. Strengthening victim screening for people labeled as “foreign fraud suspects,” expanding access to T visas and asylum protections, and adopting clear federal guidance on non-punishment would prevent wrongful prosecutions and encourage cooperation with investigations into transnational organized crime. U.S. sanctions from the State Department and Treasury have begun targeting criminal networks and complicit business actors linked to scam compounds; expanding these efforts, paired with anti-money-laundering rules, crypto-traceability, and beneficial-ownership transparency, would disrupt the financial systems that fuel these operations. At the state level, jurisdictions such as California can further reinforce these protections through safe-harbor policies, stronger oversight of digital recruitment channels, and consumer-protection rules focused on payment platforms and online job advertisements connected to overseas labor trafficking schemes.

Comparative experiences show both promising and problematic models. Raids in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand have rescued thousands, but victims are often detained, fined, or deported instead of provided with support. Human-rights-based approaches recommended by OHCHR and survivor-advocacy organizations emphasize voluntary rescue, trauma-informed care, legal status, and long-term reintegration rather than punitive detention. A durable policy solution therefore combines law-enforcement tools (sanctions, financial crime investigations, cross-border operations) with survivor-centered protections like access to compensation funds, medical and psychological support, legal aid, and safe pathways home. Because scam compounds thrive on global inequalities and digital vulnerability, effective policy must treat victims as exploited workers, not criminals, and target the financial and political actors who profit from the system.