Global Inequality and Digital Vulnerability: Unpacking Online Scams and Human Trafficking

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, online scam operations and forms of digital-enabled human trafficking have surged dramatically. Despite the proliferation of bilateral and multilateral efforts to combat such crimes, the root causes driven by a confluence of global economic hardship, digital dependency, and human psychological vulnerability remain insufficiently addressed.

This article posits that while digital technology has a key role to play in amplifying the illicit economy, the global economic decline and intrinsic psychological biases might be fundamentally exacerbating public vulnerability to online scams and coercive trafficking. As such, there is a need for the implementation of both preventive and people-centric solutions alongside existing law enforcement frameworks.

THE SCALE OF ONLINE SCAMS

In less than a decade, online scamming has evolved from rudimentary phishing emails to highly coordinated and transnational criminal enterprises. In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States reported that consumers lost nearly USD 12.5 billion to online fraud, representing a 27 percent increase from the previous year. Europol has estimated that cyber-enabled crime now accounts for more than 60 percent of organised criminal activity across Europe, suggesting a shift in criminal business models toward digital exploitation.

Relatedly, Interpol’s Operation First Light led to the arrest of 3,950 suspects and the seizure of over USD 257 million in criminal proceeds through a global police operation mobilised in over 60 countries in 2024.

In Southeast Asia, scam operations—including call centre syndicates and online gambling traps—are often intertwined with human trafficking. Victims are coerced into perpetrating scams under threat of violence and detention, particularly in border regions and unregulated digital zones. The UN Human Rights Office noted that an estimated 120,000 people in Cambodia and 100,000 in Myanmar were forced to participate in scam operations in 2023. Many victims, including foreign nationals, are lured by fake job postings that promise high salaries in digital marketing or customer service roles. Once trafficked into countries such as Laos, Cambodia or Myanmar, they are detained in compounds, subjected to forced labour, and tasked with defrauding others online.

POLICY EFFORTS AND LIMITATIONS

Governments around the world have responded to the proliferation of digital scams and trafficking through multilateral agreements. At the national level, countries have tightened their cybercrime and anti-trafficking laws. In the United Kingdom, the Online Safety Act of 2023 aims to hold digital platforms accountable for harmful and fraudulent content, including scam advertisements and romance fraud.

Similarly, Southeast Asian countries have looked to enact new laws or amend existing ones to hold social media platforms liable for cybercrimes. For instance, Singapore has implemented its Online Criminal Harms Act, passed in 2023, to tackle the rise in digital crimes through measures such as platform takedown orders and enhanced cross-agency coordination, while the Philippines passed the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2022 to explicitly criminalise online sexual exploitation and fraudulent recruitment through digital platforms. In Indonesia, the National Police has established a cyber division that works in tandem with the Ministry of Communication and Information and the Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK) to detect and dismantle scam networks hosted on social media, and to highlight new forms of digital exploitation. The Indonesian Military (TNI) has also been given a mandate to get involved in cyberspace through the revision of Article 7 of the TNI Law, which expands its tasks regarding the category of Military Operations Other Than War (OMSP).

At the regional level, the ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (ACTIP), ratified by all ten ASEAN member states, serves as a legal framework to tackle trafficking, promote victim protection, and enhance cross-border cooperation. This regional mechanism is also supported by specialised training, shared databases, and coordinated rescue operations. Notably, bilateral cooperation has also intensified in the region, such as joint operations between China and Cambodia targeting scam compounds in Sihanoukville as well as cooperation between Thailand and China against scams and human trafficking in the Myawaddy-Mae Sot area. However, enforcement remains uneven, and digital crime often outpaces regulatory mechanisms. In war-torn states like Myanmar, law enforcement capacity is weak or fragmented, allowing scam compounds to flourish with impunity. Despite the above-mentioned extensive efforts, significant challenges remain. Many countries still lack the technical expertise, inter-agency coordination, or cross-border legal instruments needed to effectively combat transnational cybercrime. Moreover, the measures remain predominantly reactive, focusing on investigation, prosecution, and the dismantling of criminal networks after the crimes have occurred, leaving the structural drivers of online exploitation unaddressed.

ECONOMIC DRIVERS OF VULNERABILITY

A critical examination of the root causes must begin with the global economic context. The world economy has been subjected to significant stress following the COVID-19 pandemic, and recovery remains slow and uneven. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), global GDP growth decelerated from 3.5 percent in 2022 to the stagnant average of around 3.2 percent in 2023-2025, with developing countries bearing the brunt of inflationary pressures, high costs of financing, and weak investment growth. This slowdown has contributed to rising unemployment. The International Labour Organization (ILO) reported the global youth unemployment rate to be at 13 percent in 2023, showing a return to pre COVID-19 levels. Youth unemployment in 2023 was higher than in 2019 in the Arab States, East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. These figures reflect not only economic distress in those regions but also the scarcity of stable, formal-sector employment—conditions that make individuals, particularly young people, more likely to fall prey to fraudulent job offers. Moreover, the same report also mentioned that the chance of young people getting a decent job in formal sectors is negatively correlated with the income level of the country and the prevalence of conflict.

This is a particularly salient issue in Southeast Asia. In countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, where economic instability is compounded by political unrest, citizens often face limited job prospects. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported that economic growth across the region will continue to experience a downturn throughout 2025 and 2026 due to the new US tariffs and other policy shifts, escalating geopolitical tensions, and a slower growth in the Chinese economy. Another compounding factor is the Trump administration’s decision to cut US foreign assistance around the world. Specifically, US aid significantly supported refugee camps in Thailand, particularly along the Thai-Myanmar border. With that support going away overnight, lives inside the camps have become even harder. The profound hardship may lead these refugees to be recruited by transnational crime syndicates who can offer them jobs with illusive financial incentives and seemingly legitimate employment in the border zones. For perspective, two of nine border camps—Mae La and Umpiem Mai—are less than a two-hour car ride away from the Myawaddy-Mae Sot border crossing, which is known for its notorious scam compound, Shwe Kokko. These two camps host 44,672 refugees as of January 2025; and if just one percent of those people join the scam operations, this would translate to close to 500 fresh recruits for the illicit activities. 

DIGITAL DEPENDENCY AND EXPOSURE TO THREATS

In tandem with economic insecurity, the rapid expansion of digital dependency has amplified exposure to online threats. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated global reliance on digital platforms though this was not reflected in aggregated indicators such as the level of internet penetration (as measured by average annual growth of internet users per 100 inhabitants) that only saw a consistent year-over-year growth of around 2 percent. It is plausible that the digital dependency that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic was more about behavioural and lifestyle change rather than internet adoption, per se. For instance, it was more about how more people were being forced to use the internet for work, education, and financial activities during the global lockdown, and those habits have stuck with them since then. This digital penetration into daily life, while offering many benefits, has also created fertile ground for cybercriminals. Technological advancement such as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) helps scam operations to mimic most effectively legitimate digital experiences such as job portals, banking systems, and customer service interfaces.

In tandem with economic insecurity, the rapid expansion of digital dependency has amplified exposure to online threats.

As more people conduct personal communication and financial transactions online through their mobile phones, the risk of manipulation and exploitation rises. For instance, countries with high levels of mobile and internet usage, like the Philippines and Thailand, have seen spikes in online scams during and after the pandemic. Between 2022 to 2024, the Philippine National Police recorded over 23,142 cybercrime cases, many of which were related to online scamming, identity theft, and hacking. Similarly, Thailand has experienced a 112 percent surge in scam calls and SMS messages in 2024, marking a five-year high. Even in a more-educated/digitally literate society such as Singapore, reported cases of online scams are also on the rise; and while it is extremely difficult to go after these online scammers due to their sophisticated ways of obfuscating their operations and financial transactions, these cases often involve transnational criminal syndicates operating across Southeast Asia, especially in the Golden Triangle area.

PSYCHOLOGICAL VULNERABILITIES AND COGNITIVE BIASES

These structural vulnerabilities are compounded by intrinsic psychological factors. A growing body of academic research in psychology and behavioural economics has explored why individuals fall victim to disinformation and online scams. Prospect Theory pioneered by Kahneman and Tversky, highlights how people make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. It reveals that individuals are more likely to take irrational risks when faced with the potential of an imminent loss vis-a-vis a gain. In the context of online scamming, scammers exploit this cognitive bias by creating a sense of urgency, scarcity, or fear. For example, they may falsely alert a victim, via a phone call or SMS, that their bank account has been compromised and urge them to take immediate action and follow certain instructions.

Human susceptibility to misinformation can also be rooted in cognitive biases such as authority bias, which increases trust in messages that appear to come from authoritative figures. That is why impersonating government officials, police officers, or even utility services that connect with the government’s policy has become a widespread tactic among scammers. In a similar manner, psychological manipulation is also central to human trafficking. In many documented cases, victims are not kidnapped but lured by emotional appeals, such as promises of love, community, or economic stability. As noted in one of the chapters from the report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, trafficking networks increasingly rely on social media platforms to recruit individuals through false relationships or fictitious employment opportunities. This form of coercion operates on emotional rather than physical force, exploiting the need for belonging and security.

HOLISTIC APPROACH NEEDED

The rise of online scams and ICT-enabled human trafficking cannot be understood in isolation from broader global trends. Economic stagnation, digital dependence, and cognitive vulnerability together create a perfect storm for exploitation. The impact can even be further amplified in an ecosystem that allows such exploitation to occur, such as weak rule of law, fragmented regulations and the lack of preventive coordinated efforts. Addressing these challenges requires a holistic approach—one that combines traditional enforcement with preventive people-centric strategies. Only by recognising and addressing the socioeconomic and psychological drivers of vulnerability can the global community hope to dismantle the systems that sustain online criminal enterprises. Given the multifaceted nature of the problem, solutions must go beyond law enforcement. While legal crackdowns on cybercrime are important, they must be complemented by structural reforms and public policy initiatives aimed at reducing economic desperation and enhancing digital resilience. Governments should prioritise economic development strategies that generate stable employment, particularly for youth and marginalised groups. Investment in vocational training, education, and entrepreneurship support can create alternative pathways to employment and reduce the appeal of risky or fraudulent opportunities.

Equally vital are social safety nets that protect citizens during economic downturns. Welfare programmes—including unemployment benefits, housing subsidies, and universal healthcare—can help buffer the economic shocks that make individuals vulnerable to exploitation. Countries with strong social safety mechanisms are better equipped to prevent their citizens from falling into criminal networks or migration traps. Public education campaigns aimed at improving digital literacy, especially among vulnerable groups such as senior citizens, should also be expanded. Teaching individuals how to identify misinformation, verify online sources, and recognise common scam tactics can significantly reduce the effectiveness of fraudulent schemes. Digital resilience must therefore be a national policy priority, integrated into school curricula and community outreach programmes.

 Falling for scams is not a sign of digital incompetence; it is often the result of emotional manipulation and misplaced trust.

Moreover, international governance frameworks must evolve to reflect the borderless nature of cybercrime. Existing frameworks on human trafficking and organised crime should be updated to include protocols addressing online recruitment, virtual coercion, and digital financial transactions. Regional cooperation through multilateral frameworks such as ACTIP, should incorporate digital components into their strategies, recognising that the landscape of exploitation has shifted from physical borders to digital platforms. They should also consider legal measures that go beyond one nation’s jurisdiction and sovereignty to tackle the intricate network of money laundering used by cybercriminals and human traffickers for erasing their digital transaction trails and evade legal repercussions. For instance, the efforts usually start from transferring fiat currencies to multiple bank accounts before moving them into crypto wallets, and then laundering them back to cash or other high-value assets.

Finally, individuals themselves must play a role in safeguarding their digital presence. Practising good cyber hygiene, such as using strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and verifying unfamiliar contacts, can help reduce personal risk. Equally important is fostering a culture of critical thinking and digital scepticism. Falling for scams is not a sign of digital incompetence; it is often the result of emotional manipulation and misplaced trust. Even the most tech-savvy individuals can be deceived when urgency and familiarity override critical thinking. We need to encourage people to pause, question, and verify before clicking. Digital literacy should go beyond knowing how to use technology; it should include the courage to ask, “Is this real?” By building habits of critical inquiry, we empower individuals and communities to resist deception and navigate the digital world with confidence and care. As the Internet becomes a primary source of news, employment opportunities, and a sense of community, it is essential that people know how to navigate it safely.

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This is an adapted version of ISEAS Perspective 2025/45 published on 18 June 2025. The paper and its references can be accessed at this link.