What began by exploiting victims in China and Taiwan, before moving into South and Southeast Asia and India, has now reached Africa, where high youth unemployment and migration pressures are fueling a dangerous recruitment pipeline leading to cyber-slavery.
According to an investigative report by The Guardian UK, African jobseekers are increasingly being lured into what experts describe as “modern-day slavery,” trapped in compounds across Southeast Asia and forced to run online scams for organised crime groups.
The report details the ordeal of 26-year-old Kenyan national Duncan Okindo, who travelled to Bangkok in December after paying a recruitment agency 200,000 shillings (£1,150) for what he believed was a customer service job. Instead, his passport was confiscated, and he was trafficked into Myanmar.
Okindo was held inside KK Park, a sprawling compound run by Chinese criminal gangs, where he was forced to spend months operating fake social media accounts designed to defraud Americans through cryptocurrency schemes.
Like others trapped in similar facilities, he faced violent punishment if he failed to meet daily scam targets.
A booming industry of exploitation
The UN estimates that at least 120,000 people are trapped in cyber-scam compounds across Myanmar, many in the border town of Myawaddy. The Guardian UK reports that the number of these compounds has more than doubled since Myanmar’s 2021 coup, rising from 11 to 26 along the Thai border.
Initially, these “cyberslavery” operations targeted Chinese and Taiwanese nationals. Over time, syndicates expanded to Southeast Asians and Indians.
Now, Africans, particularly Kenyans, Ugandans, Ethiopians and South Africans are increasingly being trafficked to fill the demand for English-speaking workers with digital skills.
Why Africans are being targeted
Many young Africans are being drawn into criminal networks because of their fluency in English, familiarity with Western culture, and high unemployment at home.
Analysts told The Guardian UK that after Chinese authorities cracked down on fraud targeting their citizens, syndicates increasingly turned to workers in Africa to run scams aimed at the US and Europe.
In Kenya, roughly 80% of the population is under 35, with limited job opportunities, making them particularly vulnerable.
A survey cited by the Guardian found that four in ten young Kenyans have considered migrating for work. Traffickers exploit this desperation, advertising fake jobs on social media, through text messages, and even in rural recruitment drives.
Government responses and rescue operations
Freeing trafficked victims requires delicate coordination between governments, militias, and local authorities.
According to The Guardian UK, the Thai government has played a key role in securing releases, liaising with Myanmar’s junta and local militias. Victims are released into Thai custody only after their governments agree to repatriate them and cover the costs of return flights.
In February, 260 people from 19 countries were freed from industrial-scale online scamming operations in Myawaddy, Myanmar, and handed over to Thai authorities in Mae Sot. These scam compounds are notorious for trafficking victims into harsh conditions marked by surveillance, threats, and beatings.
Thai officials identified 258 of the rescued individuals as trafficking victims under the National Referral Mechanism. Most were from Asia and Africa, including the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, China, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and even Brazil.
Between January and April 2024, Kenya’s government repatriated 175 citizens from Myanmar, a sharp increase compared to 150 rescues recorded between 2022 and 2024. Ethiopia and Uganda have also facilitated returns of their nationals.
In March this year, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) confirmed the rescue of 23 South Africans from Myanmar, with support from the Border Management Authority. They were among more than 7,000 foreign nationals trapped in similar conditions.
Much like the case of Okindo, the victims were lured by a fraudulent employment agency that advertised lucrative jobs on social media, offering attractive salaries, free accommodation, and paid travel. After arriving in Thailand, they were trafficked across the border into Myanmar against their will.
A growing humanitarian crisis
Benedikt Hofmann, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s regional representative, told The Guardian UK that as awareness grows in one country, traffickers simply shift to another. “That’s also why we’re seeing this increase in people from Africa,” he said.
For survivors like Okindo, the trauma lingers long after their release. Speaking to The Guardian UK, he admitted that recalling his ordeal still fills him with fear.
His story reflects a stark reality: for thousands of Africans, the dream of opportunity abroad has become a nightmare of captivity, abuse, and exploitation.
