She ‘wants to die there.’ The women forced to scam and the families left behind
CNN
By Teele Rebane, Hanako Montgomery. Video by Dan Hodge, Exxon Ruebe and Ladan Anoushfar, CNN
Manila, Philippines (CNN) — All the names of women have been changed at their request to protect their identity.
An hour north of the city, where urban sprawl gives way to hills, a boy in a Batman shirt waits by the front of his family’s small convenience store.
Eagerly, he accompanies us past the candy, snacks and lottery tickets, to the simple living space at the rear.
He tells us his name, that he is three years old, and he misses his mom.
The boy’s aunt Rose and his grandparents have been looking after him and his younger brother since April, when their mother, Lily, took what she thought was a customer service job in Taiwan.
Instead, Lily became one of hundreds of thousands of people who have been trafficked to work in the heart of Asia’s notorious scam industry. For months, Lily says she has been held captive and tortured in Myanmar – details Rose keeps from the rest of the family to protect them from further heartache.
In the few messages Lily has sent Rose, she says “she wants to die there,” Rose told CNN. Rose’s reply is always the same: “Please don’t do that…your kid always asks me when you will go home.”
Experts say traffickers are increasingly targeting women to fill roles in their expanding scam operations – using their faces and voices for online romance schemes. In some cases, the women are forced into sex work to serve the men inside compounds that function like self-contained cities.
In the Philippines, where stable, well-paid jobs are scarce, many women take higher-earning roles abroad and send money home to pay for their children’s education, buy homes or support their parents.
But when criminal networks exploit this hope and desperation, families like Lily’s are robbed of mothers, sisters, daughters – and breadwinners.
In a months-long investigation, CNN spoke to several women who described horrifying conditions inside the compounds, where they were forced to con victims – ordinary people from America to Australia – in romance scams, investment schemes and more.
Women working inside – who hail not just from Asia, but also from Africa and Europe – told CNN they were made to memorize scripts and use AI face and voice filters to lure victims. Those failing to comply are punished with violence and sexual abuse, they said.
Many of the scam compounds operating across Southeast Asia are run by Chinese crime syndicates. Rose says trafficked women like her sister “were promised a good life and a good salary… but when they go there it’s really the opposite.”
“It looks like hell.”
Life inside
It’s a hell Casie knows well.
The single mother-of-four was already well-versed in working abroad to support her young family, having previously been employed as a sales assistant in Dubai. So, when she saw a job for a customer service representative in Hong Kong, advertised by another Filipina on Facebook in January, she didn’t hesitate to pack her bags.
The job in Hong Kong was a fake. Instead, Casie was trafficked to Cambodia and forced to run extortion scams.
Taking a deep breath, Casie recited to CNN the script she was forced to read: “Hi, good day. My name is Casie. I’m calling from Verizon. May I speak to Mr. John?” Casie paused for a heartbeat before delivering her verbal blow: “Your SIM card is used for fraudulent messages, money laundering and buying an illegal gun. After two hours we report you.”
Casie said her company was one of dozens operating out of the same building – ranging from romance, investment and loan scams to other crimes like drug and wildlife trafficking.
Casie, though, wanted no part of it. One day she saw a Facebook post from her recruiter, advertising the sale of Filipino workers for 60,000 pesos (about $1,000) per person. It was more than she could bear.
Furious, Casie confronted the recruiter face-to-face. “Why would you do this to us? You’re also a Filipino. We’re Filipinos. Why would you do it to us? You lied to us!” she recalled yelling, as she punched the woman until she bled.
“Deep inside I was scared,” Casie said of the confrontation. After months of corporal punishment – forced standing and withheld meals – she feared she would be killed for fighting back.
Casie was rescued in April with the help of the Philippine Embassy in Cambodia. Embassies of countries with a large victim population have taken a leading role in negotiating releases and pressuring local governments to raid scam compounds.
But diplomacy only goes so far in Cambodia and particularly Myanmar, where the areas hosting compounds are fought over by armed groups. In some cases, trafficking victims have no option but to make a run for it on their own.
The families left behind
When women like Lily and Casey work abroad, others must step in to keep the household running. Usually, their earnings help — but when such women are trapped in servitude, those gaps become all but impossible to fill.
Charlotte’s daughter was trafficked to Myanmar in January, leaving six children behind. “It is so hard to raise them, to feed them, to send them to school,” she said of housing her grandchildren in her small home south of Manila. “I had to sell most of our things. We barely have electricity or water. There’s nothing left.”
For Charlotte, the local families of other trafficked women have become a lifeline – they meet in each other’s homes, share information and pass along updates from inside the scam compounds, no matter how gut-wrenching those messages may be.
She showed CNN photos of her daughter’s injuries – bruises across her body, even on her bottom. All of it, Charlotte says, is evidence of abuse.
On two occasions, Charlotte said her daughter told her she was ordered to strip naked in front of her bosses who filmed her for clients to watch. “She had no bra. She was naked. She was ashamed,” Charlotte said. “I cry when I remember it.”
Most women are trafficked to the compounds to work as scammers, Daniele Marchesi, Philippines country manager of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told CNN. “But if you’re not performing, you might be moved to another building within the facility and given another kind of duty.”
Sex trafficking in the compounds can take many forms – from forced sex work to acts of sexual violence used as punishment, according to the UNODC.
Stories of sexual abuse inside scam compounds are common, though the details are often difficult to confirm.
For months, these families have been pleading with the Philippine government for help in bringing their loved ones back, to no avail.
“I want to ask them,” Rose said, “are you going to wait until somebody dies before you do something?”
Gilbert Cruz, former executive director of the Philippines’ Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission, told CNN that the issue goes beyond his country’s control.
“This is a worldwide problem. If some countries allow these things to happen, our people will go there thinking that they will be earning more,” he said in September, while still in the role.
“As far as our country is concerned, we’re doing our best to protect our people and also to give them what’s right for them,” he said, listing things such as “having a decent life,” “a nice, decent job” and “access to education.”
A scam compound fit for a millionaire
Most of Southeast Asia’s scam compounds are located in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. However, in September CNN was given a rare glimpse of a former compound in a small town in the Philippines, three hours north of Manila.
The nearly 10-hectare property, complete with mansions and an Olympic-sized swimming pool for the bosses, was raided by the government’s anti-organized crime agency last year. Since then, it has remained largely untouched, offering a snapshot into the secretive world of the scam industry.
Stepping inside, cobwebs cover a sprawling office space that could easily seat a few hundred workers. Computer monitors are piled in a corner, and unused SIM cards are scattered on tables alongside notebooks with step-by-step guides to scamming. One such booklet titled “A Complete Guide to Advancing Relationships and Communicating (Five Phases)” teaches scammers how to woo victims and time their investment pitches. Scripted lines include: “I hope we’re in love now and can earn our future wealth.”
In what appears to be the boss’ office, a 24-pack of Red Bull energy drinks sits on the desk alongside migraine medication.
In the shared dorms, bras, makeup and snack wrappers are left scattered on a bed, as if the occupants were forced to leave in a hurry.
On the other side of the compound, a five-story mansion overlooks the city-sized camp. This is where Philippine officials said fugitive Huang Zhiyang, the accused China-born criminal boss, lived with his family and staff. Religious figurines adorn the house; an entire room serving as a shrine and offering a glimpse into Huang’s superstitions and efforts to protect himself.
On the top floor, behind double-bolted doors, lies Huang’s bedroom and study – a Montessori parenting book and English language textbooks sit on his bedside table and desk.
A wine cellar stocked with Macallan Scotch whisky and snake wine conceals a secret tunnel that Philippine authorities allege Huang used to escape the property. His current whereabouts is unknown, and officials have issued an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges.
The wealth on display offers an insight into the revenue generated by a single compound in this billion-dollar industry. It also raises questions about how a place like this could be built in a sleepy town without arousing suspicion.
In the past two years the Marcos administration has cracked down on scam centers, also referred to domestically as Philippine offshore gaming operators (or POGOs). The POGOs – offering online gambling services for largely Chinese customers – were initially welcomed by the former Duterte government for their investment and job opportunities. But they quickly morphed into staging sites for human trafficking and forced labor.
Dismantling the compounds littered across the country has proven tough for authorities; They say they have had to contend with some local officials allegedly involved in the scam operations and highly sophisticated criminal gangs.
The future of scamming
Scammers are becoming more sophisticated, too. In Telegram chats, they share and sell tools and resources – such as photo packages to other scammers, so they can convince victims that they’ve holidayed in Paris, or have bought a house in Los Angeles with their newly acquired wealth.
Scammers are also sharing advanced automated translation models, and most importantly, AI face and voice filters, said Marchesi, from the UNODC.
Originally from South Africa, Sara told CNN she used these filters to play Asian characters while working as a “model” inside the notorious KK Park scam compound on the Thai-Myanmar border.
“I was Linda, I was Jenny. They were Asian girls, but they all have different personality,” she said. “One had a child, one didn’t have a child. One was outgoing, one was reserved.”
Sara said she was trafficked to the compound under the guise of an IT job in 2022. Bosses quickly took a liking to her perfect English and gave her the name Cessa, short for Princessa.
When a victim was ready to invest big, models like Sara would be brought in for a voice or video call to seal the deal. She said she was one of a handful of models assisting several hundred scammers in the company. With little notice, Sara said she would study the scammers’ chat histories and use AI face filters to become whoever they had been pretending to be.
“You basically become an actor, you have to memorize your scripts,” Sara said. “You haven’t slept, you’ve been tortured, and you have to remember these scripts.”
“The worst part (was) you had to be sexual with them. You had to sext them,” she recounted.
For the models, there is real money to be made – though it could only be spent in the make-believe world of the scam compound and its malls, cinemas and hotels, according to Sara. Some models bought into it, doing their best to bring in large sums and make a cut themselves, she said.
A salary of up to $6,000 a month and a chance of a better life for loved ones back home made the risk worth taking for some. In what appear to be scammer and model audition tapes posted in Telegram channels, women from across Asia and Eastern Europe list their credentials. One says: “I have work experience as AI model for a year, dealing with US platform and also real face model dealing with Europe market. And also, I have basic knowledge in cryptocurrency and I’m a fast learner and I can work under pressure, and I hope you guys can give me a chance.”
CNN spoke with several women and their loved ones from countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe who, at least initially, willingly entered the scam industry as models.
One of their employment contracts in Cambodia detailed the model’s job duties and the standards they are held to. It instructs them to “answer calls and videos according to customer needs, handle difficult questions, understand the customer’s chat history, and adjust emotions accordingly.” Models are also told to study “luxury goods, golf, rugby, luxury cars, and the lifestyles of the wealthy.”
Sara says as essential as women were to the operation, they were also the easiest to control through the constant threat of sex slavery.
“They would be like, ‘You want to go be a sex slave?’” she recalled. “They know that’s our greatest fear.”
After nine months, Sara was allowed to leave KK Park under the condition that she would return after caring for her sick mother. She didn’t.
Casie has been home since April but is still working out how to pay back huge debts her family accrued while she was trapped in Cambodia. “After that tragedy, after human trafficking happened, I really don’t know how to start again,” she said.
Lily finally returned home to the Philippines in November, to the boy in the Batman shirt and his little brother. Like Casie, she must put on a brave face and begin rebuilding a life for her young family. The children are relying on her.
Credits
Reporter: Teele Rebane
Correspondent: Hanako Montgomery
Field producer: Yasmin Coles
Editors: Sheena McKenzie, Hilary Whiteman
Cameraperson: Dan Hodge
Video editor: Exxon Ruebe
Senior video producer: Ladan Anoushfar
Visual editor: Carlotta Dotto
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