How Southeast Asia Became Home to the World’s Scam Farms

Online scammers steal billions of dollars each year, targeting anyone they can reach on a mobile phone or computer.

Governments have watched with alarm as large-scale operations, known as scam farms — physical hubs where fraud operations are run using trafficked workers — have multiplied in recent years, particularly in Southeast Asia. The industry was turbocharged by the Covid-19 pandemic and Myanmar’s 2021 military coup, helping turn the region into a global epicenter of online fraud.