Is this the end for South East Asia's scam centres?

Summary

Business Daily – "Is this the end for South East Asia's scam centres?"

BBC World Service | Host: Ed Butler | Date: November 25, 2025

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Overview

This episode investigates the dramatic recent developments inside Southeast Asia’s massive scam center industry—an illicit, multi-billion dollar enterprise where thousands are coerced into perpetrating online scams from guarded compounds in Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. With new military offensives, international law enforcement actions, and shifting regional power dynamics, the podcast assesses whether the tide is finally turning against these criminal networks—and at what cost.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. The Human Cost: Voices from Inside the Scam Compounds

• Testimony from Victims
  Ed Butler shares the story of a Filipina whose sister was lured with a fake job offer and forced to work in a scam center, echoing countless similar accounts.

  “No one deserves the treatment that they’re getting right now. They are forcing [us] to work to scam people for 18 hours… only limited food.”
  — Anonymous Victim [02:07]

  • Victims describe extreme exploitation: one meal per day, no clean water, torture (paddling, electrocution), and grossly inadequate medical care.
  • The UN estimates as many as 200,000 people have been trafficked into these centers, largely operated by Chinese gangs, generating hundreds of billions of dollars.

2. Inside the Compounds: Physical and Psychological Barriers

• Firsthand Observations
  Local activist and fixer “Yi” describes the impenetrability of the compounds and the hopelessness within.

  “The black one is a cage. Cannot run away from there.”
  — Yi [04:17]

  “I got a chance to talk with some people, just a quick talk with them, and they said they want to go back home. But it’s quite hopeless inside the detention center.”
  — Yi [07:22]

• Segregation & Ransom:

  • Chinese captives command higher ransoms and are treated as more “valuable,” with soldiers openly discussing the buying and selling of individuals.
  • Other nationalities, such as Nigerians, face even more dire neglect.

3. Recent Upheaval: Military Attacks & Mass Escapes

• Myanmar Military Intervention

  • In a surprising turn, the Myanmar military bombed KK Park, a notorious scam complex, triggering chaos and allowing hundreds—possibly thousands—to escape.

  “Company bosses had actually fled… A large group of Africans take the lead and head towards the gates… overpowered the military… from then on we’ve had accounts of hundreds, if not thousands, of people leaving KK Park.”
  — Judah Tanner (Aid Worker) [05:49]

  • Many escapees wandered local villages, while others were ferried over rivers or ended up in squalid detention centers.

• Motivations Remain Murky

  • Analysts speculate whether military actions are crackdowns or just maneuvers to gain greater control over the illicit profits or appease China.

  “Activists… say the attacks are either just a cover for its own attempts to extort a bigger share of the multi-billion dollar profits… or meant to appease its key regional ally, China.”
  — Ed Butler [09:20]

4. Geopolitical Forces and International Crackdowns

• China’s Involvement

  • According to Judah Tanner, China demanded Myanmar free and return 30,000 Chinese nationals, prompting the army’s rare intervention.

  “China put out a request... they wanted at least 30,000 Chinese people to be rescued and sent home.”
  — Judah Tanner [09:57]

  • China’s actions are complicated by its desire to support the Myanmar military (which depends on scam revenues) in its ongoing civil war.

  “China’s desire to support the military war effort has compromised its long-standing urge to put a stop to the scams.”
  — Ed Butler (summarizing Jason Tower) [16:51]

• Major Bitcoin Seizure

  • The US and UK coordinated to seize $15 billion in Bitcoin linked to Cambodia’s Prince Group, a conglomerate accused of running scam operations.

  "The Prince Group bills itself as one of Cambodia's largest conglomerates… People started asking where were the billions of dollars that were supporting this business coming from?"
  — Jack Adamovich Davis (Investigative Reporter) [12:14]

  • The group’s chairman, Chen Zhi, is known for his sudden wealth, political connections, and rumored Chinese security state links.

  “He sort of emerged from nowhere with enormous quantities of cash. And in Cambodia, cash buys you influence.”
  — Jack Adamovich Davis [12:49]

  • Despite international crackdowns, Cambodian government response is viewed as inadequate, with “cosmetic” rather than substantive action.

5. Will These Moves End the Scam Centers?

• Cautious Optimism, Deeper Problems

  • Recent crackdowns have caused shockwaves among criminal syndicates, revealing vulnerabilities. Some crypto assets have been frozen and networks disrupted.

  “This, I think, has created a bit of a shock for the cyber scam syndicates… shown [the] ability of countries to come in and cut off some of their ties to the formal financial system.”
  — Jason Tower (Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime) [19:14]

  • However, criminal actors are highly adaptable, shifting operations and exploiting ongoing instability and corruption.

  “There are very powerful actors and elites that are supporting and backing these, including the Myanmar military, its border guard force... they’re going to respond doing things similar to what they did many times before.”
  — Jason Tower [19:36]

  • Meaningful change depends on sustained, coordinated international law enforcement and pressure—“more concerted effort… is still required, including criminal sanctions and arrests, if the maze of crime groups is to be rooted out once and for all.”

  — Ed Butler [20:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the suffering of victims:
  “It’s really like, I cannot imagine, sir, the suffering of my sister, me being abused. It’s really evil.”
  — Anonymous Victim [02:47]

• On the paradox of military “crackdowns”:
  “Activists… say the attacks are either just a cover for its own attempts to extort a bigger share… or meant to appease its key regional ally, China.”
  — Ed Butler [09:20]

• On the complexity of Chinese involvement:
  “China’s desire to support the military war effort has compromised its long-standing urge to put a stop to the scams as well.”
  — Ed Butler [16:51, summarizing Jason Tower]

• On systemic corruption and government inaction:
  “At the end of the day, its only real statements… has been to insist that due process be allowed to take place. There seems to have been very little or no action against the Prince Group.”
  — Jack Adamovich Davis [15:23]

• On the adaptability of crime syndicates:
  “Criminal actors are highly adaptable, shifting operations and exploiting ongoing instability and corruption.”
  — Paraphrased from Jason Tower [19:36]

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Content/Highlight | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:09 | Introduction; episode premise | | 02:07 | Testimony from scam center victim | | 03:52 | Account of explosion in scam centers' numbers and scale (Judah Tanner) | | 04:12 | Description of physical barriers (Yi) | | 05:49 | Mass escape from KK Park (Judah Tanner) | | 07:22 | Situation in detention centers (Yi) | | 09:57 | China’s diplomatic pressure (Judah Tanner) | | 11:36 | International action—US/UK Bitcoin seizure (Jack Adamovich Davis) | | 13:44 | Profile and political links of Chen Zhi/Prince Group | | 16:51 | Tension between Chinese support for military and scam crackdowns | | 19:14 | Syndicates’ reaction/adaptations (Jason Tower) | | 20:17 | Closing: a call for more “concerted effort” against crime groups |

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Tone & Style

The episode maintains a serious, investigative tone—marked by a sense of urgency and empathy for victims. Victims’ voices are given prominence, complemented by expert analysis and on-the-ground reports, conveying both the scale of criminality and the complexity of political entanglements.

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Conclusion

While news of military raids, escapees, and massive financial seizures may signal cracks in Southeast Asia’s scam trade, the episode underscores a sobering reality: entrenched corruption, high-level collusion, and the adaptability of scam syndicates mean the battle is far from won. Meaningful progress, all experts agree, requires persistent international pressure, real criminal justice action, and—crucially—protection and support for the thousands still trapped inside.

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End of Summary.

Transcript

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[Ed Butler]

Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. Today, dramatic new accounts of what's going on inside Southeast Asia's multi billion dollar scam industry. Buildings have been coming under attack and allowing thousands to flee these criminal compounds.

[Judah Tanner]

We've had accounts of hundreds if not thousands of people now leaving the scam centres and making their way throughout villages. Many have accounted that they are now hiding throughout the villages in people's homes.

[Ed Butler]

What's behind the latest developments is concerted international pressure turning the tide on a criminal network.

[Jason Tower]

Now you have more and more countries that have been pulled into this, that are being harmed by this, that are calling out and demanding that something be done about it.

[Ed Butler]

The latest military and legal moves, all they really appear. That's Business Daily from the BBC.

[Anonymous Victim]

It's very bad, sir. I mean, no one deserves the treatment that they're getting right now. They are forcing to work to scam people for 18 hours only limited food.

[Ed Butler]

This woman's story reflects that of thousands of people trapped inside what's become a globalized criminal industry. She asks us not to identify her for her family's safety. Her sister left their home in the Philippines one year ago to take up what she thought was a job in a Thai call center. She ended up forced to scam people using fake cryptocurrency schemes.

[Anonymous Victim]

They only allowed to eat one meal per day and no access to clean drinking water. And if they didn't do the work or they did not reach the hotel, they were given punishment. There were Paddling, electrocution, It's really like, I cannot imagine, sir, the suffering of my sister, me being abused. It's really evil.

[Ed Butler]

These accounts of torture have been corroborated by thousands of other victims. The UN says that as many as 200,000 people from countries around the world have been lured into scam centres on the promise of well paid work. The criminal operations run by Chinese gangs, mostly in lawless corners of Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, could, it reckons, be making hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Judah Tanner is an Australian aid worker based in Northern Thailand who's helping to rescue and repatriate some of the victims.

[Judah Tanner]

Since 2021, 2022, we've seen just an explosion of the number of scam centres in the region. We have an estimated maybe 200,000 victims having crossed the border from Thailand into Myanmar to work inside some of these centers, being forced to work up to 18 hours a day with little to no pay whatsoever.

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

Do high wall. See the high wall, right?

[Ed Butler]

Yeah.

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

And also the cctv. The black one is a cage. Cannot run away from there.

[Ed Butler]

About six months ago, I visited this region along with Yi, who was my fixer and a local activist. I looked over the river that divides Thailand and Myanmar at KK Park. It's one of the region's most notorious scam centers. We're looking across just a few meters to the green forested bank on the other side of the river. It's a small, narrow brown river with the water flowing fast and just beyond it I can see a big white apartment complex.

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

It looks like I never seen this kind of building in Myanmar. Even Mandalay Hotel is not like this, really huge, like a palace building in the forest. There's no place to escape. How they can run away, how they are feeling inside.

[Ed Butler]

As for how they were feeling, well, last month this happened. A Myanmar military plane bombed KK park directly. The attack on a small part of the complex caused chaos. Large numbers of foreign workers managed to escape. Aid worker Judah Tanner Again, hundreds of.

[Judah Tanner]

People were fleeing from KK Park. From what we've been able to gather, the company bosses had actually fled the scam centres, which allowed a large group of Africans take the lead and head towards the gates of the scout compound and essentially overpowered the military that were there, keeping the gates closed and opened the gates. And from then on we've had accounts of hundreds if not thousands of people leaving the KK park and making their way throughout villages. But they don't know where to go and they're not sure how to get Home.

[Ed Butler]

In this video received by the BBC, a small group of Ethiopians and Filipinos are ferried across the river.

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

We are here now, ma'. Am.

[Anonymous Victim]

We are going to transfer to the.

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

Other side over there.

[Ed Butler]

This was part of a daring rescue organized by Thailand based aid workers. Other videos posted online show migrants trying to swim across the river to evade the local security. Not all of them made it. Bodies have since been discovered downstream. Hundreds more of those who didn't get across have ended up in places like this. My fixer e managed to get inside a detention centre in Myanmar last month run by the armed militant group the Border Guard Force which provides security for KK Park. She was there to negotiate one woman's release, but she saw hundreds of others trapped inside dogs.

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

I got a chance to talk with some people, just a quick talk with them and they said they want to go back home. They really miss their home. But it's quite a hopeless inside detention center. They don't have any replying from their embassy and some people they are sick but they cannot get the treatment inside.

[Ed Butler]

Basically a lot of them are there waiting for somebody to pay to get them home.

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

Yeah. So when I stand in front of that detention center, I heard two soldiers, they are talking. Do you see any Chinese scammer on the road inside? Mia Wodi, if you see them, please let me know. I want to go and arrest them. They want to sell that Chinese people because they can get 50,000 to 60,000 Baht for one Chinese if they sell again to.

[Ed Butler]

So the Chinese workers are the most valuable? That's what they're saying?

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

Yes. Also I survived Nigerian people. Nobody go and arrest them. Why Chinese people are expensive than the other.

[Ed Butler]

They don't care about the Nigerians, they just care about the Chinese.

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

Yes, yes.

[Ed Butler]

Because they command a higher ransom.

[Yi (Fixer/Local Activist)]

Chinese boss, they only want the money. If you can pay the money, you can ask it.

[Ed Butler]

As you can hear, it's a complex situation. The Border guard force and Chinese syndicates aren't available for comment. Thailand has this month extradited one leading scammer to China, the man credited with founding the biggest of all the Myanmar scam developments. Shway Kokou and now the Myanmar military have launched an operation against that as well. In this video, hundreds of Chinese scam workers can be seen on the streets of Xuecoco with suitcases in hand waiting to be evacuated. Local ringleaders have apparently fled and thousands more migrants have been freed. The reasons why the military has chosen to attack these facilities does remain a little mysterious. Analysts say that it has for years been taking a cut of the scam proceeds, although it says it's now striking a blow for the rule of law. Activists, though, are doubtful about that claim. They say the attacks are either just a cover for its own attempts to extort a bigger share of the multi billion dollar profits from the Chinese gang masters, or Judah Tanner says it's meant to appease its key regional ally, China.

[Judah Tanner]

China put out a request to the Myanmar group that they wanted at least 30,000 Chinese people to be rescued and sent home. And the Myanmar militia groups that are involved in that area have fail live up to what the China government has requested. So what we've seen is the military group of Myanmar actually come down and facing off with the rebel group on the request of China's government to bring out these large numbers of people.

[Ed Butler]

Judah Turner, you're listening to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

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[Ed Butler]

I'm Ed Butler, and today we're looking at new dramatic developments affecting the scam centers of Southeast Asia, and they extend well beyond Myanmar itself. They're now being driven by international action against the scam syndicates. The US And UK recently announced a huge coordinated seizure of Bitcoin. Officials say that the $15 billion seized were illicit proceeds of a conglomerate called the Prince Group that's running scam operations in Cambodia. Jack Adamovich Davis is an investigative reporter specializing in that country, and he gave me the background.

[Jack Adamovich Davis]

The Prince Group bills itself as one of Cambodia's largest conglomerates, and it appeared out of Nowhere, pretty much 10 years ago, in 2015, it was opening casinos, it was opening supermarkets, hotels, resorts, apartment blocks. Their leader, their chairman, very young gentleman called Chen Zhi. And people started asking where were the billions of dollars that were supporting this business coming from? And no one could quite make it makes sense.

[Ed Butler]

Who is Chen Shi and where did he come from?

[Jack Adamovich Davis]

So he is 37 years old, born in Fujian province in China, and with a detour in Chongqing, he eventually ends up in Cambodia about 15 years ago. He's told bankers that he got a $2 million loan from an uncle in China who he refused to name to them. But none of that adds up to to him being a billionaire when he was 28 years old. But by 2014, he's got a Cambodian passport and by the end of the last decade, he's well on his way to being a fully credentialed advisor to the Interior Minister of Cambodia. To the Prime Minister of Cambodia. He sort of emerged from nowhere with enormous quantities of cash. And in Cambodia, cash buys you influence and access and he seemed very intent on getting lots of that.

[Ed Butler]

I guess there are rumors about him being connected with the Chinese state. I mean that, that's kind of inevitable, isn't it?

[Jack Adamovich Davis]

I think, yeah, people are always going to speculate as to those sorts of things. You know, in terms of direct links, he definitely has some ties to the Chinese security state.

[Ed Butler]

The links to Chinese security emerged with the testimony of this man answering simply to the name Eric. He's a former Chinese secret service agent who defected to Australia last year. On his social media platform, he's presented evidence of his past employment with the Prince Group, which he describes as a shell organization created both to launder Chinese influence and channel money abroad. These scam syndicates, they have inextricable links with the Chinese Communist Party. They're colluding. The country is backing these rich and powerful individuals who help it do its dirty work. They use each other to get what they need. Beijing hasn't responded publicly to Eric's claims, but in its defence, advocates say that China has been doing more than many countries of late to clamp down on the scammers. In recent weeks, it's extradited, convicted and sentenced to death a number of individuals accused of high level involvement. It should be said, though, the same get tough approach is not in evidence in Cambodia itself. Jack Adamovic Davis Again, the Cambodian government.

[Jack Adamovich Davis]

Obviously insists that it's not involved in the cyber scam industry. It repeatedly claims to crackdown, although those crackdowns are perceived by most observers as sort of cosmetic sticking plasters on bullet wounds. But at the end of the day, its only real statements regarding the allegations against the Prince Group has been to insist that due process be allowed to take place. And there seems to have been very little or no action against the Prince Group, which is very interesting given that the Hong Kong government has acted, the Singapore government has acted, the Taiwanese government has acted. The Prince Group is accused of being one of the biggest players in this industry and its chairman is an advisor to the current Prime Minister, was an advisor to his father, the previous prime minister. So it's almost hard to draw a dividing line between him and the government.

[Ed Butler]

The Cambodian government hasn't responded to the BBC with any comment. In the past, Prince Group has denied involvement in scams, but as for Chen Zhi himself, well, nothing has been heard or seen of him for well over a month. What is clear is that the combination of military action in Myanmar and the indictment of these alleged scammers has represented a setback for one of the world's fastest growing and most lucrative criminal networks. But the question does remain, is this really a turning point in the battle against the scams? For Myanmar, the context of the boom in scam centres has been a bloody civil war between the military and a patchwork of rebel groups. With China's logistical support and the influx of cash from the scams, the military has been gaining the upper hand of late. But Jason Tower, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, reckons that China's desire to support the military war effort has compromised its long standing urge to put a stop to the scams as well.

[Jason Tower]

In early 2024, it stopped putting pressure on the Myanmar military around the online scamming issue because it realized that the Myanmar military was so fragile and that if it continued to go down that road, ethnic armed organizations were on the verge of putting the Myanmar military on its deathbed. I mean, it was that serious. The resistance was down in Mandalay, you know, as of last August, when China really turned completely against those resistance actors and started putting massive amounts of pressure on them. And I think this is now coming back to haunt Beijing once again. I mean, these scam centers are once again a major problem globally now. You have more and more countries that have been pulled into this, that are being harmed by this, that are calling out and demanding that something be done about it. And I think it does put China in a very difficult situation. I mean, it's either going to have to, to, you know, step in and start punishing its border guard force once again. And in that case, it's going to risk that the Myanmar military loses access to all of these revenues, maybe loses access to areas along the border. Or the other alternative for Beijing is that it gets involved even more deeply in supporting the Myanmar military. I mean, this is going to be very expensive though, right? I mean, you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue being lost every single month. And what offsets that replaces that? If the military loses access to all of the revenue from the scam centers, there is the big question of what replaces that.

[Ed Butler]

So you're saying that China has split loyalties here, but now, you know, given the various pressures building on those scammers, could, could this not be the beginning of the end in the fight against them?

[Jason Tower]

This, I think, has created a bit of a shock for the cyber scam syndicates, the transnational criminal syndicates that have been perpetrating these, these crimes shown that is the ability of countries to come in and cut off some of their ties to the formal financial system. And so you've already heard about individuals kind of going out of some of the scam centers in Myanmar or Laos, rushing off to, to Cambodia to try to pull out some of their funds from the banks that have been targeted before. These banks are, are insolvent. But at the same time, there are very powerful actors and elites that are supporting and backing these, including the Myanmar military, its border guard force. And you know, they're going to respond doing things similar to what they did many times before. You know, just as this action is being undertaken right now in compounds that line the Moi river, there's continued recruitment and other scam compounds and continued developments elsewhere across the country. When it comes to even the expansion.

[Ed Butler]

Of some of these compounds, activists argue that more concerted effort by government law enforcement is still required, including criminal sanctions and arrests, if the maze of crime groups is to be rooted out once and for all. From Southeast Asia. That's it for this edition of Business Daily. My name's Ed Butler. Take care.

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