Huge online scam operations are flourishing in war-torn Myanmar – I travelled there to find out why

Huge online scam operations are flourishing in war-torn Myanmar – I travelled there to find out why

The town of Shwe Kokko in south-eastern Myanmar, which is widely recognised as hosting one of the country's most notorious scam centres. Naphatpixs / ShutterstockSouth-east Asia has become the “ground zero” for the global online scamming industry, according to the UN, costing victims billions of US dollars each year. Scam operations are run by Chinese crime syndicates from fortified compounds in countries like Myanmar, which has been embroiled i…

Foreign workers, local sponsors: How Palau became a quiet hub for global scam operations

Palau, a Pacific island nation better known for turquoise lagoons and luxury diving resorts than cybercrime, has found itself drawn into the expanding orbit of a global scam industry worth tens of billions of dollars. Recent police raids on two hotels in the country’s main city of Koror have exposed how sophisticated online fraud operations can take root even in some of the world’s most remote and tightly knit societies. What investigators uncov…