Scamming to survive
Shedding light on the trafficking of Vietnamese people into forced criminality Read full reportPhoto by Ivan Franceschini.
Introduction
Forced scamming, a violent form of exploitation that entails the trafficking of individuals to force them to conduct lucrative criminal activities online, has increased exponentially across Southeast Asia – and beyond – in recent years.
With its exorbitant growth since the COVID-19 pandemic has come a rise in the number of Vietnamese victims of human trafficking Blue Dragon assists. Alongside these rising numbers, Blue Dragon has also observed significant changes in the demographic characteristics and struggles of these victims, as well as the ways in which they are preyed upon.
Despite the Vietnamese making up a substantial share of the increasingly global cohort of victims of this crime, little is known about who they are, how they are trafficked, and by whom.
By analysing 21 forced criminality cases tried in the Vietnamese courts involving 130 victims and 43 traffickers, this report aims to change that.
With Scamming to Survive, Blue Dragon hopes to shed light on the complexities of this form of exploitation and foster evidence-based policy discussions and support services for survivors.
Forced criminality in Southeast Asia
Despite its relatively recent expansion, the proliferation of forced criminality in Southeast Asia has been so exponential that the United Nations has deemed it one of the largest coordinated trafficking in persons operations in history.
According to data from the Office of the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United States Institute for Peace, more than 300,000 people have been trafficked for the purpose of forced scamming into Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos alone.
These trafficking victims are exploited by organised crime syndicates in mass-scale compounds, which are typically located in Special Economic Zones with minimal regulation and law enforcement oversight and in areas riddled with conflict, corruption or instability.
Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, with their distinct sociopolitical realities, have provided unique conditions for organised crime to establish and scale-up these lucrative criminal enterprises. The tens of thousands of scammers held in these compounds deceive an even larger number of people globally, generating shocking profits for the crime bosses behind them.
Known scam compounds in Southeast Asia identified by researchers Ling Li, Ivan Franceschini and Mark Bo. Map created with Datawrapper.
Estimates indicate that Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia rake in $43.8 billion USD from the scam industry every year, which is equivalent to 40% of their combined formal GDP.
What goes on behind the barbed wire?
A forced scamming compound in Cambodia.
Photo: Ivan Franceschini.
Victims of forced criminality are held captive in large-scale, heavily guarded compounds. Whether purpose-built or repurposed, these buildings are often surrounded by walls topped with barbed wire and surveilled by armed personnel to deter any attempts to escape.
Forced scammers are required to conduct various types of online fraud under desperate conditions. Forced to work long hours and meet unreasonable daily targets, victims report being burdened with fabricated debts, subjected to physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, and threatened with being sold to even more abusive captors or killed.
How forced scamming impacts Vietnam
More than 5,000 Vietnamese nationals were repatriated from online scam operations in Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and the Philippines between mid-2022 and early 2025, and thousands more are believed to still be held in scamming operations across the region.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reports that Vietnamese nationals constitute one of the three main countries of origin for victims of forced criminality.
Top five countries of origin victims of forced criminality assisted by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in 2023.
Source: Asia-Pacific Migration Data Report 2023, IOM.
Blue Dragon’s analysis has found that cases of forced criminality were the third most prosecuted form of human trafficking in Vietnam between 2022 and 2024, with the number of cases brought to trial increasing three-fold in just three years.
Understanding who is vulnerable to being trafficked into scam centres and what drives people to facilitate their trafficking is essential to prevent further victimisation.
Key Findings
A new victim profile: ethnic Kinh men are at the highest risk
For the first time, male victims surpass the number of female victims
Vietnamese men are at a higher risk of being trafficked into forced scamming than women. A staggering 83.1% of victims in prosecuted cases of forced criminality were men.
The rise of this form of trafficking has been so significant it has skewed the gender makeup among victims of all forms of human trafficking.
According to the Border Guard Command, prior to 2021 men accounted for only 16% of human trafficking cases in the country. Since 2021, this rate has increased to 64%.
The majority of victims are men and boys.
While smaller, the number of female victims isn’t negligible, nor are their struggles. Most female survivors of forced criminality assisted by Blue Dragon report having suffered sexual abuse in the compounds.
Surge in vulnerability among Vietnam's largest ethnic group
Historically, trafficking in all its forms has disproportionately affected Vietnam’s ethnic minorities – which make up 14.7% of the country’s population. However, in forced criminality, the majority ethnicity Kinh also make up the majority of the victims.
With this shift, traffickers are exploiting economic hardship and job insecurity across a much wider demographic.
In relative population terms, however, ethnic groups remain at the highest risk, with some ethnic groups being up to 13 times more vulnerable to forced criminality than the Kinh.
Kinh victims make up the largest share of victims of forced criminality.
Poverty is the main driver: 98.5% of victims were lured with fake job offers
Much like in other forms of human trafficking, poverty and migration in pursuit of economic stability are the main drivers of forced criminality. The data demonstrates a clear correlation between the need to migrate to find work and vulnerability to forced scamming.
The socioeconomic indicators in the maps below further illustrate the link between economic hardship and victimisation.
The provinces with the lowest Gross Domestic Product per capita – and therefore with the highest income poverty rates – recorded the highest numbers of victims.
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A high number of people working in the informal economy tends to indicate scarcity in formal employment opportunities and economic instability within a community. And so, unsurprisingly, in areas where informal labour rates are elevated, so is the number of forced scamming victims.
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An identical pattern emerges when looking at migration rates. The more people leaving a given province, the higher the number of victims of human trafficking for forced scamming among its citizens.
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These indicators paint a clear picture: The crime syndicates driving this human trafficking crisis prey on the desperation of those struggling to earn a living to lure them into exploitation.
Most traffickers are known to their victims, but online recruitment is gaining ground
64.6% of the victims were deceived by people known to them; acquaintances, neighbours, friends and, in a minority of cases, family members.
Although online deception is increasingly common, the data shows that, much like in other forms of exploitation, traffickers of forced criminality target victims within their own communities.
Traffickers exploit pre-existing trust or relationships within their social circles across all ethnic groups in Vietnam.
What role do digital apps play in the recruitment of victims?
Most victims knew their traffickers, but 3 in 10 were recruited online.
30% of victims wound up in exploitation after being deceived on digital platforms.
Vietnam has one of the highest internet use rates in the world. Almost 73 million Vietnamese use social media, making these platforms a particularly appealing medium for traffickers to find their victims.
95% of the victims recruited online were tricked with fraudulent job offers on social media.
Victims typically saw ads in Facebook groups or personal posts, expressed interest and were then contacted by traffickers.
After that first contact, victims are usually added to a Telegram group – a messaging app known for its encryption, which allows traffickers to operate secretly. Through Telegram, victims are then guided to travel to border areas, and smuggled out of the country.
Victims turned traffickers: An overlap that complicates victim identification and prosecution
Nearly 1 in 4 traffickers were also victims of this crime
Of the 10 traffickers who may have been victims forced to scam before becoming recruiters, at least half had to pay ransoms to be freed from the compounds.
This blurring of roles complicates prosecution, as legal systems struggle to determine the criminal liability of perpetrators acting under coercion or duress.
Due to specific traits like coercion and debt bondage, the transition from victims to traffickers is much higher in forced criminality than in other forms of exploitation.
How do victims become perpetrators?
The court data shows three possible scenarios :
The victim was trafficked and forced to carry out online scams. Their exploiters told them to recruit others in exchange for commissions or they may have done so under threats of violence, but the court records do not contain this information.
The victim was trafficked into a compound and then someone paid for their release in exchange for them bringing in new victims.
The victims were ransomed by their families and returned to Vietnam or stayed in Cambodia to look for work, but ended up participating in recruiting others.
A man accused of human trafficking shows remorse during his trial.
Victims lost two decades to slavery
On average, each victim spent 87 days inside a scam compound. Information about the time spent in captivity wasn’t available for 41 of the victims. The remaining victims spent an astounding 7,251 days held in captivity, which adds up to almost 20 years lost to exploitation.
The time spent in slavery, along with the lengthy psychological recovery victims need, results in immense losses in productivity, earning opportunities and time with loved ones for families and communities.
The price of freedom: 1 in 3 victims paid an average $2,800 to be released
Payment is often the only way for victims to secure their release, with the families of 45 or 34.6% of victims having paid a ransom to free their loved one.
Collectively, these families paid $111,150 USD for their relatives’ release. Individually, on average, each family spent $2,778 USD.
The average monthly income of a Vietnamese worker is $279 USD. This means families had to pay the equivalent of approximately ten months’ wages to secure the freedom of their loved ones.
Traffickers of forced criminality have relatively low education levels
Only 1 in 5 traffickers had graduated from high school
None of the traffickers of forced criminality prosecuted in the Vietnamese courts had completed higher education. Most of them left school before Grade 10.
Education levels of traffickers of forced criminality.
Convicted traffickers are prolific but rank low in the criminal chain
On average, each perpetrator trafficked 3 victims
Before the spread of forced criminality, most human traffickers prosecuted in Vietnam were unprofessional, opportunistic and engaged in this crime as a way to generate much-needed income. Then, on average, each perpetrator trafficked one victim.
For traffickers of forced criminality, this ratio stands at three victims per perpetrator. This might be due to the capacity of scam compounds to absorb a high number of victims, but it could also indicate that these traffickers are more organised and aware of their roles in the chain of command.
A defendant accused of trafficking eight people into scamming compounds stands trial.
70% of prosecuted traffickers are first-time offenders
Despite being more prolific, the data suggests these perpetrators are the low-hanging fruit of the transnational trafficking networks behind online scam operations. A few indicators signal this:
On average, each perpetrator was paid $2,084 USD for their crimes, an amount that pales in comparison with the multi-billion-dollar profits crime syndicates make from online scams.
70% of them were first-time offenders with clean criminal records, indicating that most convicted traffickers of forced criminality are not career criminals.
Most traffickers had low education levels, worked informal jobs or were unemployed. This, along with the fact that many were previous victims of this crime, suggests most perpetrators brought to trial come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Convicted traffickers are the low-hanging fruit of the crime syndicates behind forced scamming. Bringing those at the top of the chain to justice remains a challenge.
Both traffickers and victims have limited access to legal representation
At least 31% of victims and 33% of traffickers did not have access to a lawyer
According to court documentation, only 25% of victims and 46% of traffickers had legal representation at trial. These figures could be higher given the lack of information about legal representation for 44% of victims and 21% of traffickers in court documents. Nonetheless, gaps in access to legal representation are significant for both victims and perpetrators.
Having access to legal counsel is particularly crucial in forced criminality cases. Given the complexity of this crime, strong advocacy is needed to ensure that victims are not charged with crimes carried out under duress while in exploitation.
Victims were almost twice as likely to face the legal system without any form of legal counselling and aid, leaving them vulnerable to re-traumatisation and unsupported through challenging legal processes.
Two defendants face the judge during a human trafficking trial in 2023.
Blue Dragon represented 88% of victims who did have a lawyer, filling a critical void in legal representation.
Traffickers were sentenced to an average of 12.8 years in prison
86% of prosecuted traffickers were convicted for their crimes
Of the 43 traffickers, 37 were convicted to sentences between 1 and 33 years in prison. Three traffickers are still wanted for their crimes, and there is no sentencing information for three more traffickers who appealed their sentences.
In scam compounds, violence is endemic and extreme
Most victims of forced scamming have experienced torture
All forms of exploitation entail violence to varying dregrees. All victims of trafficking are subjected to a wide range of abuses and violations of their rights.
In the case of forced criminality, however, extreme violence is a defining trait. The court documents show that, for these victims, violence was not the exception but the norm.
Sleep and food deprivation, physical violence often resulting in life-threatening injuries, and sexual abuse are commonplace in the compounds.
A young woman reunites with her father after Blue Dragon rescued her from human trafficking.
The high levels of violence experienced by victims of forced scamming pose challenges for their recovery, and for the authorities and service providers supporting them.
Beatings, starvation and terror: Chien's job from hell
Chien was trafficked from a remote village in rural Vietnam to a scam compound in Myanmar. Up until then, all of his life experiences had been up in the mountains, interacting with others in his ethnic language and without relying on technology.
His captors expected him to scam millions from other fellow Vietnamese, but Chien lacked the words and the digital skills he needed to succeed, and this angered them.
At first, Chien was berated and yelled at for failing to rake in any profits. Then came the threats. As 19-year-old Chien grew more and more frightened, his ability to carry out the scams diminished even further. “He went into freeze mode. He felt paralysed. It was his body’s survival mechanism,” his Blue Dragon psychologist would explain months later.
Chien’s fear-induced paralysis exasperated his captors, who soon escalated their verbal abuse into physical violence. His captors regularly beat him. They made him run until complete physical exhaustion. They rationed his food. When none of that worked, they decided to completely isolate him. For two full weeks, he was locked in a dark room and fed scraps. Chien feared for his life.
This experience was traumatic for Chien. Even months after reaching safety, he struggled to put into words the torture he had endured.
When does violence become torture?
The United Nations defines torture as the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering through physical and non physical or psychological acts for a specific purpose.
Blue Dragon’s findings show that, in these compounds, violence is routinely used as a tool to control and coerce victims into committing crimes for the enrichment of the criminal enterprises, as punishment for their refusal to take part in these activities, and as intimidation to get them to pay ransoms for their release.
“Sister, I beg you. If I don’t have it by 5pm, he’ll kill me. He was holding a gun. I beg you”. A plea for help from a 17-year-old tortured in a scam compound, whom Blue Dragon rescued in 2023.
All these purposes are included in the United Nations Convention against Torture which, having been ratified by 153 states, is the most widely recognised international treaty on torture.
The Convention also states that torture can occur in all contexts of custody or control, including those in which “the failure of the State to intervene encourages and enhances the danger of privately inflicted harm.” When this failure occurs, states bear responsibility for the torture taking place within their borders.
Using this framework, the United Nations has already labelled the violence taking place in scam compounds as torture.
When violence rises to the level of torture, states can be held accountable for failing to stop it and face international pressure to put an end to it and punish the perpetrators.
Challenges and Complexities
Male survivors encounter significant obstacles to access support services
Vietnamese assistance programs and policies remain largely geared towards female trafficking victims
This struggle to adjust to the rapid changes in the gender distribution among victims of human trafficking brought about by forced criminality hinder the recovery and reintegration of male survivors.
Men and boys who have endured forced scamming have access to fewer services and are less likely to be officially identified as victims of human trafficking.
Additionally, male victims experience a great degree of shame and are less likely to self-identify as victims of a crime.
Three young men return to Vietnam after Blue Dragon rescued them from a scam compound.
Male victims of forced criminality face challenges to their recovery on multiple fronts. The lack of specific services is compounded by gender perceptions that result in few of them seeking psychological care and other forms of support.
The blurred line between victims and perpetrators creates serious issues
Transitions from victim to trafficker and vice versa confound courts and service providers alike
Various scenarios of the victim-perpetrator continuum exist inside scam compounds: victims are forced or enticed by promises of release to traffic their friends; workers who originally agreed to scam become victims due to the exploitative and violent nature of the work inside scam compounds; and victims who are ransomed find themselves unable to find legitimate work and recruit others in order to repay debts.
This poses serious challenges for victim identification and support, and for the prosecution of forced criminality.
Human trafficking is only one part of the vast criminal ecosystem fuelled by online scams
Most victims of forced scamming have experienced torture
Digital recruitment and online fraud are facilitating criminal activities and victimising communities on both sides of online scamming; by recruiting and exploiting trafficking victims to conduct scams and financially scamming unsuspecting victims around the globe.
The multifaceted nature of this crime poses massive challenges for law enforcement and requires coordination between sectors that have previously not had strong collaboration. Tackling forced online scamming requires action from public and private sector institutions related to money laundering, online fraud, banking, and social media regulation.
To further complicate the matter, these crimes are not just conducted across borders. Each criminal activity — be it recruitment, scamming, money laundering or profit taking — often involves multiple countries.
The multifaceted nature of online scamming and forced criminality requires coordination between sectors that have previously not had strong collaboration.
Recommendations
Implementing protective measures that recognise the victim-perpetrator duality is crucial
A better understanding of the forced nature of these crimes is needed
The complex continuum from victim to perpetrator is a defining trait of forced criminality, and needs to be better recognised by law enforcement and the justice system.
This includes the need to develop mechanisms to appropriately apply the non-punishment principle, which is recognised by international law and aims to protect human trafficking victims who were forced to commit unlawful acts.
Some measures to guarantee the complexity of the crime is understood and victims do not get punished include:
Training for legal and law enforcement systems at all levels
Regional sharing of best practices in identification, investigation, and prosecution of crimes of forced criminality, including the effective collection and use of digital evidence.
The digital aspect of forced scamming must become a key element of trafficking prevention
Digital platforms failing to address criminal activity must be held to account
The centrality of digital platforms in facilitating the whole range of crimes related to online scamming requires new urgency to address this issue.
Digital literacy initiatives for vulnerable groups should be integrated into broader anti-trafficking prevention strategies.
Concrete actions to hold companies responsible for crimes facilitated and committed through their platforms are urgently needed.
This crisis can only be ended with open collaboration among countries and stakeholders
Traditional counter-trafficking efforts alone will not suffice to dismantle transnational organised scamming
Addressing the scale and prevalence of trafficking for forced criminality will require unprecedented collaboration, not only between multiple country governments, but also with various fields within the private sector.
Experts in human trafficking, money laundering, transnational crime, labour migration, torture prevention, internet and technology regulation, and anti-corruption must join forces.
Blue Dragon Children's Foundation is on a mission to end human trafficking.
To achieve this, we tackle this crime on all its fronts. We rescue people from slavery; provide holistic reintegration assistance; implement large-scale prevention initiatives tailored to the needs of each community; and use what we learn through our grassroots work to advocate for policy and law reform.
Blue Dragon is a registered charity in Australia, the USA, the UK, New Zealand and Germany.
