He scammed people for their money. He was also a victim.

Internet scammers steal billions from Americans each year. In one workroom in South-East Asia, where dozens of fraudsters trolled dating apps for fresh victims, they would beat a giant drum and chant each time they successfully duped someone into sending them money. “It was a whole celebration,” said Jalil Muyeke, a 32-year-old from Uganda who witnessed the festivities from inside a compound in Myanmar.

Muyeke was also a victim. But the masterminds behind these schemes didn’t drain his bank account. Instead, he said, they stole seven months of his life, forcing him to work on their scams.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been lured into scamming operations. In Muyeke’s case, he was ensnared through a promising job opportunity. After a harrowing journey spanning thousands of miles, he was trapped inside one of the hundreds of compounds in South-East Asia, often controlled by Chinese organised crime rings and set up for industrial-scale scamming.

These fraud farms – some of which are repurposed casinos that were shuttered during pandemic lockdowns – are often staffed with trafficked workers laboring under the threat of severe beatings, electric shock or worse. “Cyber-enabled fraud perpetrated by powerful transnational criminal networks has evolved into a thriving multibillion-dollar illicit industry that now exceeds the GDP of several countries in South-East Asia combined,” said John Wojcik, regional analyst at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. M.