Overview
- The International Organization for Migration told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that trafficking into online scam compounds has sharply increased and now involves victims from more than 80 countries.
- IOM says traffickers use fake job ads on social platforms to recruit educated, English‑speaking people who are then stripped of documents and forced by threats, violence or debt bondage to run online frauds.
- The agency reported it assisted over 3,500 survivors of forced criminality from 2022 through 2025 and warned that huge scam centres in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos may each host tens or hundreds of thousands of trafficked workers.
- IOM cited United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that losses linked to these operations across East Asia, Australia and New Zealand reached as much as $114 billion last year, underlining both the economic scale and the challenge for law enforcement.
- The agency urged stronger cross‑border cooperation, survivor protection and public awareness because victims face trauma, debt, stigma and threats of prosecution even after escape, and many centres operate in remote areas with weak enforcement.