Satellite Images Reveal How Suspected Scam Compounds Appear Out of Nowhere

More than two dozen suspected new scam compounds in war-torn Myanmar have been built or expanded significantly in the past six months, according to satellite images and analysis of the area reviewed by WIRED. The apparent growth of the criminal operations indicates how a purported crackdown on the sites last year did little to stop the highly lucrative scamming industry.

At least 25 alleged scamming sites have appeared in the Myawaddy region of Myanmar, close to the country's border with Thailand, since around the start of the year, according to an analysis of satellite images by the International Justice Mission, an anti-human-trafficking nonprofit. The images show how land has been flattened and swaths of forest razed, to be ultimately replaced by dozens of buildings and the infrastructure required to run scam operations at scale.

“Some were skeptical that the crackdowns last year were genuine, and this imagery shows that was correct,” says Eric Heintz, a global analyst at the IJM, who focuses on the impact of scam compounds and analyzed the suspected sites. “While that crackdown did disrupt operations, the scale of these new developments appears to be more than enough to absorb what was destroyed last year.”

Over the past decade, scam compounds have appeared widely across the Southeast Asian countries of Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. These sites, which are often operated by Chinese organized crime groups, are responsible for vast portions of global online scamming—and are involved in stealing billions of dollars through complex cryptocurrency and romance scams targeting victims in the US and around the world.

While overseen by criminal bosses, much of the day-to-day scamming—involving cold contacting thousands of potential victims of social media, earning their trust over time, and cashing out stolen money—is undertaken by victims of human trafficking. People from more than 60 countries have been lured to the region by false promises of work and then forced to scam people 24/7. Many have their passports taken, receive beatings if they refuse to work, and have little chance of escape. Hundreds of thousands of trafficking victims have been tricked into the compounds in recent years.

The industrial-scale scam operations have turned into a global crisis, with a raft of international sanctions being issued against those allegedly involved or linked to the operations in Myanmar and Cambodia last year. Starting around October, ahead of elections in the country, Myanmar’s military junta raided some known compounds, making a show of exploding buildings and steamrolling phones and computers used in the scam operations.

However, those eye-catching efforts appear to have done little to stop the vast scamming enterprises from operating and conning new victims. Mechelle B. Moore, the CEO of the anti-trafficking nonprofit Global Alms Incorporated, who is based in Thailand near the border with Myanmar, says her group has identified at least a dozen new sites, and some groups have repopulated previously raided areas. “There’s some that have stayed empty, but there’s a lot of construction that was happening toward the end of last year that no one saw,” Moore says.

Some of the new and expanding compounds identified by Heintz, which were first noted by the Associated Press in June, appear to have been in the early stages around the time of the crackdown, but other work started around January, the researcher says. “The pace of construction is significant—some of these are going from empty fields to operational compounds in a couple months,” Heintz says.

Satellite images seen by WIRED show how buildings have been created within clearings, with around 24 buildings appearing at one site between January and April. Other satellite images show how large numbers of trees have been cleared to make space for the buildings, with roads and what may be houses being built around the sites. Clusters of large buildings, which are likely to be accommodation for trafficking victims, have appeared on many of the sites.

“The layout of these compounds match what we’ve seen in the 30-plus other larger compounds in the area,” Heintz says, adding that while the IJM has not spoken to people who have escaped from the sites, they are aware of people inside them. He explains that many of the newly identified sites are in remote locations and would likely not have any other use in the region. “That, combined with the tech data showing a variety of foreign internet service providers associated with the locations, make me think that these locations are scam-related,” he says.

The researcher has previously used data from the mobile advertising industry to analyze what devices and internet service providers are being used at known scam compounds in Myanmar—including Elon Musk’s satellite internet system Starlink, which is operated by SpaceX. A WIRED investigation last year found at least eight compounds in the Myawaddy region appearing to use Starlink devices, including having antennas positioned on their rooftops. US law enforcement officials subsequently ordered the seizure of Starlink terminals used at some compounds.

“We continue to see Starlink being used, with at least half of these new locations using their terminals—we know exactly where these compounds are, and in some cases know the IPs used by Starlink connections from these compounds, and it remains unclear why the company can’t shut these off,” Heintz says. Starlink did not immediately respond to a request for comment but has previously said it has cut connections to 2,500 devices linked to scam compounds in Myanmar.

Moore, of Global Alms, says that despite the crackdowns last year, little has been done to target the criminal entities behind the operations. She says that when a compound is raided, those behind it move people to other compounds. “We have drone footage, so we’ve confirmed eyes on for nine of the different sites that we thought had been emptied, and they’re all populated, and new victims in there,” she says. “Nothing has changed, unfortunately,” Moore says. “It's just growing.”