The list of source countries is no accident

IOM Director General Amy Pope said, "We're seeing victims from over 80 different countries being trafficked into the scam centres." Between 2022 and 2025 the organisation assisted more than 3,500 victims of trafficking for forced criminality from 39 countries, with the largest numbers from Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Kenya and Bangladesh. That list describes not a geography but a labour catchment.[1]

The selection criteria confirm it. Recruiters use social media job advertisements to target English-speaking university graduates. What is sought, in other words, is someone qualified enough to believe a skilled job abroad is plausible, rather than someone visibly desperate. Pope said travelling on a tourist visa rather than a work permit was a critical warning sign that applicants should investigate.[1]

Status decides protection

IOM's emphasis converges on one point: people forced to run scams are trafficking victims who need protection, not criminals to be prosecuted. Victims are confined in compounds, stripped of their documents and made to work through violence and debt bondage. In that picture, the label a person carries when they cross a border determines what can be done with them afterwards.[1]

The operative variable here is classification. If someone leaving a compound is screened as a victim, they can give evidence, that testimony enters an investigation, and their return runs through a protection procedure; if they are processed as an offender, the same information is lost. It would be too hopeful, though, to expect the classification to settle on its own: victim status places the cost of protection and shelter on the country where the person is found, and the administrative capacity to carry that cost is not the same everywhere.[1]

What the 2025 figures showed

Losses from scam offences in East and Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand in 2025 were put at between $88.3 billion and $114.1 billion. A figure of that size suggests what sustains the industry is a supply chain rather than individual compounds. That is where IOM's 2026-2030 regional strategy will be tested: do source countries and the states where victims are found publish joint screening and return figures together?[1]