In a report issued last week, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) said human trafficking in Asian casinos is increasingly problematic, particularly in special economic zones, border towns and the so-called “Golden Triangle” in Southeast Asia, which includes Myanmar, Thailand and Laos.
The 2023 “Trafficking in Persons Report” also placed Burma, Cambodia and Macau on its list of Tier 3 jurisdictions “whose governments do not fully meet the TVPA (Trafficking Victims Protection Act) minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.”
According to Inside Asian Gaming, the report says traffickers used Covid-19 to their advantage, “by leveraging pandemic-related economic hardships, increased global youth unemployment and international travel restrictions.” The DOS said operations forcing workers to participate in cyber-scams has become a multi-billion-dollar industry over the last two years, often under the guise of casinos and shell companies.
The DOS reported that “unused hotels and other rented and bespoke commercial spaces have become hotspots for this growing criminal activity—especially within remote special economic zones, border towns and other jurisdictionally complex geographic areas known for human rights impunity and minimal law enforcement penetration.” They called out the border town of Sihanoukville, Cambodia as among the offenders.
“Fearing significant downturns in revenue stemming from pandemic-related restrictions, and witnessing widespread unemployment during the pandemic, traffickers in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Ghana, and Türkiye—including some with connections to the People’s Republic of China—saw an opportunity [and] used fake job listings to recruit adults and children from dozens of countries.”
To recruit those workers, China-based organized crime syndicates pose as online labor brokers to lure East African and Asian candidates who can speak English or have technical backgrounds. They are promised lucrative jobs, but on arrival, are taken to “scam factories” where their passports are confiscated. Then they are forced to participate in quota-based online scams, illegal iGaming, romance scams and fraudulent investment schemes, IAG reported. Some also experience physical and sexual violence.
The DOS added that some nations are attempting to locate these factory workers, free them and hold the operators accountable. Last year, Taiwan assisted hundreds of people in escaping from cyber-scam operations and returning to their homelands, and indicted dozens of people who allegedly helped recruit them.
In 2021, Laos “began cooperating with international authorities to recover Lao victims from the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in Bokeo,” the report stated, “and, despite access challenges and the pervasive impediment of local official corruption, initiated investigations into labor trafficking allegations.”
A September 2022 report in Forbes said Cambodia, allegedly a center of scam factories run by the Chinese, launched a nationwide crackdown against illegal gambling, with Interior Minister Sar Kheng announcing that 176 people had been arrested in a series of raids that recovered four guns, 804 computers, 16 laptops, 36 passports, four pairs of handcuffs, eight electric batons, two “electric shock torches” and nearly 9,000 phones.
Jan Santiago, deputy director of the Global Anti-Scam Organization, told the magazine that more needs to be done to put an end to such operations. “So long as their primary owners are not brought to justice, these fraud factories will continue and also metastasize to other countries,” he said. “They are still too lucrative.”
The DOS said millions of people are trafficked each year around the world.
In related news, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) has issued a public advisory warning people to avoid “unscrupulous groups” offering employment in the online gaming industry.
According to Inside Asian Gaming, the recruiters, who claim to represent Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) are seeking both locals and foreign nationals to supposedly work in the iGaming industry. They post job ads on social media groups, dating apps and other sites seeking customer service representatives with experience in cryptocurrency trading. The ads tout high-paying positions with good benefits, but the work instead involves online scams.
PAGCOR emphasized that its offshore gaming licensees and service providers don’t advertise on dating sites and have no link to the crypto business. “PAGCOR advocates for responsible gaming only through legitimate online gaming operations,” the regulator said.
