Myanmar’s “Scam Cities” Surge Anew: Starlink, Trafficking, and a Global Challenge
Despite high-profile crackdowns early in 2025, Myanmar’s network of scam compounds — often dubbed “fraud factories” or “scam cities” — is not only still operating, but expanding. Empowered by satellite internet, local armed groups, and complicity within fractured governance zones, these criminal hubs pose intensifying transnational threats.
Rise, Fall, and Rebirth: The Crackdown That Didn’t Stick
In February 2025, Thai and Myanmar authorities, pressured by public and diplomatic outcry, launched a crackdown against these online fraud hubs. Efforts included cutting off power, fuel, and internet access to border towns like Myawaddy and Tachilek, and repatriating thousands of foreign nationals held in the compounds.
Yet, the gains appear fleeting. Within months, new construction emerged, security fortifications were rebuilt, and operations resumed — often under more resilient architectures. Satellite imagery and drone footage reveal rapid expansion in facilities and infrastructure across the border region.
Where once these compounds relied on terrestrial ISPs and local power lines (sometimes via Thai cross-border links), many now deploy Starlink satellite internet — enabling connectivity even when traditional services are cut. Investigations show roofs festooned with Starlink dishes; in the case of KK Park, dozens of dishes have been counted on a single building.
The shift is quantitatively dramatic. According to Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) data, Starlink went from negligible presence to being Myanmar’s top-ranked “ISP” (by usage or presence) between July and October 2025.
Continued Trafficking & Coerced Labor: The Human Cost
The victims inside these compounds are often foreign nationals lured by promises of legal, high-paying online work. But once inside, many are trapped under threat, abuse, surveillance, and confiscation of passports and phones.
One striking case captured media attention: Chinese actor Wang Xing was reportedly lured to Thailand under a fake acting gig and abducted into a Myanmar scam compound in January 2025 before being rescued four days later.
Estimates of how many people are locked inside are broad and contested, but alarming. Thai officials and media have warned that tens of thousands may be held in these compounds, with some reports estimating up to 100,000 people along the Thai–Myanmar border alone.
Even after crackdowns, Myanmar authorities detained 273 foreigners from compounds in February 2025, and over 1,300 individuals working illegally in those zones were identified. Some of them were classified as trafficking victims; others remain under suspicion or processed in ambiguous legal contexts.
Starlink in the Crosshairs: Technology as Enabler — and Liability
The dramatic shift toward satellite connectivity has brought Starlink squarely into the spotlight. The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee has launched a formal investigation into SpaceX / Starlink’s role in providing internet to these scam centres. The committee has power to subpoena Elon Musk or SpaceX leadership.
Critics argue that Starlink is functioning as a backdoor network, allowing these compounds to operate even when conventional infrastructure is severed. Erin West, a former U.S. cybercrime prosecutor, has described it as “abhorrent that an American company is enabling this.”
SpaceX has publicly remained silent on the matter (no direct response to AFP or news agencies).
This raises complex legal and ethical questions:
Due diligence & oversight: What responsibilities do satellite internet providers bear for downstream misuse, especially in conflict or low-governance zones?
Technical controls: Could Starlink impose usage filters, geofencing, or traffic monitoring to block illicit operations? (Such measures risk weakening user privacy or free access rights.)
Regulatory regimes: Governments may pressure or mandate that satellite providers conform to anti-fraud and human rights norms — but enforcement in zones like Myanmar is challenging.
Reputation & liability: If found complicit or negligent, Starlink could face reputational harm, legal suits, or sanctions — particularly as U.S. and Chinese governments intensify scrutiny of enabling infrastructure for transnational crime.
Structural & Governance Dynamics: Why Eradication Is Hard
The resilience of the scam operations is not just technical — it is deeply embedded in Myanmar’s fractured political and economic configuration.
Junta and militia involvement
Many scam centres align with or are tolerated by local armed groups, border guard forces, or militias nominally allied with the military junta. These groups often control the territory in which the compounds operate, extracting rents or ensuring protection.One example is the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), which controls parts of the Myawaddy region and has influence over some scam sites.
Mobility & territorial retreat
When operations are squeezed near border zones, many compounds relocate deeper into Myanmar, further from Thai jurisdiction or detection. Thailand has limited ability to assert jurisdiction beyond its border.Revenue & financial flows
The revenue streams from these scams are massive. Some estimates place global revenue in the tens of billions, and Myanmar’s share may be substantial (though opaque).
The proceeds are likely laundered through cryptocurrency, shell companies, regional bank networks, and money laundering channels — complicating tracing and enforcement.Weak state capacity & warzones
Much of Myanmar falls outside effective central control. Civil war, sanctions, sanctions evasion, and fragmented control make enforcement risky and inconsistent.
In early 2025 Myanmar passed a new Cybersecurity Law ostensibly to combat cyber threats, but critics decry it as a tool for tighter censorship, surveillance, and state control.
Recent Escalations & China’s Response
China has taken an increasingly aggressive stance against overseas scam syndicates targeting Chinese nationals. In September 2025, a Chinese court sentenced 11 gang leaders tied to Myanmar-based scam networks to death, stating that their operations cost over USD 1.4 billion and involved murder, human trafficking, and organized fraud.
Still, analysts caution that removing a few kingpins does not dismantle the networks — new cells may emerge or migrate, aided by resilient infrastructure (e.g. satellite networks).
Regionally, Southeast Asian agencies have increased coordination. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has highlighted the challenge and advocated cross-border cooperation. UNODC Thailand continues to pressure bordering areas — cutting power and utilities in suspected zones. Yet the compounds adapt, going further inland or reinventing supply chains.
Indonesia, India, and Southeast Asian nations have also reported arrests of agents luring youth to Myanmar and Cambodia. For instance, 85 young people from India’s Visakhapatnam were rescued from cyber-trap operations involving Myanmar and Cambodia.
Risks & Future Scenarios
Business as (Illicit) Usual, but More Stealthy
Even under sustained pressure, the criminal networks appear to view crackdowns as episodic disruptions, not existential threats. The strategy is one of elasticity: relocate, hide, rebuild.
With Starlink and possibly other satellite or mesh networks, these compounds gain resilience to infrastructure cuts, making traditional countermeasures (shutting off utilities, ISP blocking) less effective.
Fragmentation & Diffusion
As enforcement tightens near traditional zones, operators may diversify into harder-to-reach territories — mountainous regions, ethnically controlled border areas, remote river valleys. This diffusion raises the costs and risks of detection.
Technological arms race
Scam networks are likely to adopt increasingly sophisticated tools:
Encrypted communications
Virtual private networks (VPNs) or anonymizing protocols
Deepfake voices or video to impersonate victims or victims’ contacts
Automated social engineering bot farms
Cryptocurrency mixers and decentralized finance (DeFi) for money laundering
All of this compounds detection and attribution challenges.
Retaliation & Security Backlash
As governments and tech platforms (e.g., Meta, Telegram, WhatsApp) intensify enforcement, criminals may pressure local militias or engage in violent resistance. The border zones are already contested and militarized; enforcement operations risk escalation.
Stigmatization & Prosecution of Victims
A grim possibility is that rescued or escaped workers may themselves face prosecution or criminalization in their home countries or transit countries. Some may have forced participation, but their digital footprints could implicate them in wrongdoing.
What Must Be Done: A Multi-Pronged Strategy
International coordination & legal frameworks
Establish clear frameworks for cross-border investigation, evidence-sharing, extradition, and prosecution of trafficking-fraud networks.
Encourage mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs) that encompass digital crimes, forced labor, and transnational fraud.
Tech accountability & conditional provision
Satellite providers like Starlink should adopt code-of-conduct norms or contractual terms forbidding illicit usage, with compliance monitoring.
Governments should explore requiring similar providers to institute traffic filtering, geofencing, or audit logs (balanced with privacy protections).
Where abuse is evident, providers may be blocked or restricted in jurisdictions complicit in criminal networks.
Target financial flows & money laundering channels
Intensify efforts to trace cryptocurrency flows, shell companies, and regional banking links used by scam networks.
Pressure banks, fintech firms, and exchanges to adopt enhanced due diligence and “know your customer” (KYC) protocols targeted at suspect jurisdictions.
Protect and rehabilitate victims
Treat coerced workers primarily as victims rather than perpetrators. Provide repatriation, trauma care, legal support, and reintegration pathways.
Collect forensic digital evidence from rescues to assist in prosecutions of network operators.
Disrupt supply chains & recruitment pipelines
Crack down on recruitment networks, visa fraud rings, and job agencies that funnel prospective workers to fraud hubs.
Conduct public awareness campaigns in source countries to warn youth of “work abroad” scams.
Adaptive enforcement & intelligence capabilities
Equip law enforcement with hybrid techniques (satellite imagery, signal intelligence, drone surveillance, open-source intelligence) to detect and disrupt remote compounds.
Build regional task forces focused on scam-hub mapping, hotspot monitoring, and rapid intervention.
Political will & accountability in Myanmar
Any dismantling must contend with the complicity of local powerholders, militias, and the junta — which may resist action.
International leverage (sanctions, diplomatic pressure, development aid conditionality) should aim to reduce the financial incentives for government-aligned actors to permit the scam trade.
Conclusion
Myanmar’s scam cities are not an ephemeral crime trend — they are evolving, expanding, and deeply embedded in the shifting power and technology landscapes of the region. The pivot to satellite networks like Starlink underscores how connectivity — long championed for development — can be weaponized by criminal syndicates in weak governance areas.
Unless countermeasures evolve in tandem — combining tech accountability, financial disruption, victim protection, and regional legal cooperation — these operations may become more diffuse, resilient, and dangerously entrenched. For governments, tech firms, civil society, and victims alike, the stakes are high: billions of dollars lost, thousands of lives constrained, and a new frontier in digital crime in need of innovative, bold response.
References
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