Yangon (AsiaNews) – Myanmar's military-controlled parliament has approved a new law imposing the death penalty on those who kidnap people and force them to work in online scam centres, one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises in the world, and one that has been growing rapidly in Southeast Asia in recent years.
The measure, adopted last Tuesday, during a joint session of Myanmar’s parliament in Naypyidaw, is the first law approved by the government led by General Min Aung Hlaing, who took over as president after a sham election.
The law provides for the death penalty for those who kidnap, torture, or detain people for the purpose of forcing them to work in so-called scam compounds, as well as in cases where online scams result in the death of victims.
For those who run or manage such centres and for certain crimes related to cryptocurrency scams, the text provides for sentences that include life imprisonment.
The United Nations views Myanmar as one of the world's leading hubs of the online fraud industry, a criminal economy that has grown in the years following the 2021 military coup, fuelled by the protracted civil war, the weakening of state institutions, and the government's limited control over areas along the borders with other countries in the region.
According to a recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in 2025 alone, criminal organisations defrauded people in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand to the tune of US$ 88.3 to US$ 114.1 billion.
This figure exceeds the gross domestic product of several countries in the region.
Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos remain the main operational centres of this criminal system, largely dominated by networks originating in China.
In recent years, China has pressured both Myanmar’s military junta and the armed groups fighting the regime to dismantle the compounds, where thousands of young Chinese are often among the victims.
However, “Their operating model looks like corporate franchising: imagine specialized departments for laundering money, trafficking people, smuggling migrants, and harvesting data, all plugged into the same, service-based interconnected network,” said Delphine Schantz, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
The industry is based on a vast system of human exploitation. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that up to 300,000 people currently work in scam centres across Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos.
Most are recruited through fake job advertisements posted on social media, promising well-paid jobs to young people with good English or computer skills. Once they arrive at their destination, they are stripped of their documents, locked inside fortified compounds, and forced, under threats and violence, to carry out romance scams or fake cryptocurrency investments against Internet users around the world.
In recent months, Myanmar pledged to carry out a more severe crackdown, partly due to pressure from China and the United States, which are particularly affected by the phenomenon.
Beijing has reported losses exceeding five billion dollars in the past two years, and this year it has already executed at least fifteen people involved in fraud networks operating along the border with Myanmar.
Despite police operations and numerous arrests, observers point out that scam centres are rarely dismantled permanently. More often, they simply relocate to areas where controls are weaker and more difficult to enforce.
The same UNODC report notes that many organisations are relocating part of their activities to East Timor, some Pacific islands, and several African countries, adopting what researchers call a jurisdiction shopping strategy, seeking out legal and political environments with weaker oversight and higher levels of corruption.
For this reason, according to human rights organisations that have been monitoring the problem for years, criminal repression alone will not likely stop this criminal industry, which has demonstrated its ability to adapt to growing law enforcement efforts.
According to the IOM, it is necessary to strengthen international cooperation, increase protection for trafficking victims, and invest more in prevention, so that potential workers can recognise fraudulent advertisements and know who to contact before falling into traffickers' networks.
