March 6, 2026: Earlier this year Thai troops advanced further into Cambodia and seized a compound that had housed several thousand people engaged in scams carried out via audio and video communications. The compound contained a six story building where most of the employees and several hundred slave laborers worked. There were also studios decorated to look like the interior of police stations or banks in various Asian countries as well as Australia and Brazil. The volunteer or enslaved workers use scripts and coerce people to pay fines or extortion for non-existent offenses. The scripts were designed to deceive the victims and worked often enough to keep this scam center in business for years. Those in charge of the operation bribed local officials to ignore foreign demands to shut down the operation from countries, including the United States, where the victims lived.

Similar scam centers also exist in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and the Philippines. Chinese gangsters operate these scam centers. Thai military forces had recently moved into this part of Cambodia, forcing several hundred civilians out of their homes temporarily. Several dozen civilians were killed or wounded.

While the scams are directed at individuals in more prosperous nations, the scammers also exploit wealthy and middle class individuals in nations they are operating in. In 2024 thousands of Thailand residents were swindled out of more than $17 billion. That’s 3.4 percent of the national GDP that year.

The scammers also kidnap local women and children to work in the scam centers or be forced into prostitution or as slave labor on fishing trawlers. For several decades local and international law enforcement organizations have been trying to suppress these criminal organizations. There has been some success, but there is apparently an endless supply of Chinese gangsters and greedy locals willing to cooperate in keeping scam operations going.