As transnational crime evolves with frightening speed, few are as equipped to dissect the complex interplay of governance, conflict, and illicit enterprise in Southeast Asia as Donald Gainsborough. A leading mind in policy and legislation at Government Curated, he has closely tracked the explosion of cyberscam operations that have turned parts of the region into global hubs for online fraud. With Myanmar’s military government now launching a high-profile crackdown in the border town of Myawaddy—a move that has ensnared thousands of foreign nationals and put a spotlight on the murky alliances between the state and ethnic militias—we sat down with him to understand the ground truth behind the headlines. Our discussion navigates the diplomatic hurdles of repatriating over a thousand detained workers, the shifting loyalties of armed groups profiting from these criminal empires, and whether the dramatic demolition of scam compounds signals a true victory or merely a strategic relocation for an industry worth nearly $40 billion annually.
Over 1,600 foreigners from 47 countries are still detained, with some repatriations taking up to five months due to a lack of local embassies. Could you walk us through the step-by-step diplomatic and logistical process involved and describe the main bottlenecks you’ve observed?
It’s a logistical and humanitarian nightmare. You have this incredibly diverse group of 1,655 people—from Vietnam, Indonesia, even as far as Ethiopia and Kenya—suddenly in state custody. They’re being housed in ad-hoc facilities, everything from town sports centers to repurposed scam compounds controlled by the very Border Guard Force that likely once protected their captors. The primary bottleneck is a simple lack of diplomatic infrastructure. For many of these individuals, particularly the hundreds from African nations, their home country has no embassy in Myanmar, or even in neighboring Thailand. This means the fundamental first step of verifying their identity and issuing emergency travel documents becomes a monumental task. It can stretch on for up to five months, leaving these people in a state of limbo, a situation made more complex by the fact that they are, as one official put it, a mix of “different religions, morals and personalities” crammed together under difficult circumstances.
The military-backed Border Guard Force claims credit for recent crackdowns, yet is widely believed to have protected scammers. Could you elaborate on the complex motivations driving ethnic militias in the Myawaddy area to either collaborate with or crack down on these lucrative criminal enterprises?
In border regions like Myawaddy, survival and profit are deeply intertwined, and loyalties are incredibly fluid. For years, it’s widely believed that the Border Guard Force provided the muscle and protection that allowed these scam syndicates to flourish, turning the area into a criminal free-for-all. The financial incentive is immense; we’re talking about a cut of an industry that generates just under $40 billion a year. Their recent pivot to “cracking down” isn’t a moral awakening. It’s a pragmatic response to overwhelming pressure from the military government, which itself is likely responding to pressure from powerful neighbors who are tired of their citizens being targeted. So, the BGF now performs these raids to maintain its ceasefire agreement and legitimacy. Meanwhile, you have other powerful groups like the Karen National Union being accused of involvement, which they deny. It’s a shadow play where every armed group is trying to balance profit, power, and political expediency, and these crackdowns are just the most visible part of that constant negotiation.
State media shows scam compounds being demolished with explosives, yet critics claim the masterminds simply relocate. Based on similar crackdowns, how effective are these high-profile demolitions, and what specific metrics, beyond arrest numbers, should we use to judge the long-term success of this campaign?
The images broadcast on state-run television—buildings crumbling under explosives, bulldozers leveling entire compounds—are pure political theater. They serve to project an image of decisive state power. While visually dramatic, this approach is fundamentally flawed. It targets the physical infrastructure but leaves the criminal architecture intact. The masterminds behind these operations are not sitting in those buildings waiting for the raid; they are mobile, well-funded, and highly networked. Destroying a compound is a temporary inconvenience for them, not a fatal blow. True success cannot be measured by the number of buildings demolished or even the 13,272 low-level foreign workers detained since January. The real metrics would be the successful prosecution of the syndicates’ leadership, the seizure of their financial assets, and a sustained, verifiable drop in reported scam cases originating from that region. Without those, these demolitions are just a costly and destructive way of signaling that the problem is simply being moved elsewhere.
The detained workers are described as a diverse group from countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Vietnam. Can you provide some specific examples or anecdotes of the recruitment tactics used to lure these individuals and describe the conditions they typically endured inside the scam compounds?
While specific recruitment stories from this crackdown haven’t been detailed, the pattern is tragically consistent and global. These syndicates cast a wide net, luring people from places like Ethiopia and Kenya with sophisticated online ads promising well-paying jobs in tech, customer service, or e-commerce in Southeast Asia. The victims are often educated and desperate for opportunity. Upon arrival, their passports are confiscated, and they are forced into debt bondage. The conditions inside are grim. They are essentially prisoners, forced to work long hours perpetrating romantic or investment scams against people all over the world. The fact that the current detainees are being held in repurposed scam compounds and sports facilities gives you a sense of the crowded, institutional environments they were already living in. They were cogs in a massive criminal machine, brought from 47 different countries, their diverse backgrounds and personalities exploited for a singular, fraudulent purpose.
What is your forecast for the cyberscam landscape in Southeast Asia, particularly concerning the resilience and adaptability of these criminal networks in the face of regional crackdowns?
My forecast is, regrettably, a pessimistic one. These criminal networks are more akin to agile multinational corporations than traditional gangs. They are technologically savvy, incredibly well-funded with revenues approaching $40 billion annually, and adept at exploiting zones of weak governance. This crackdown in Myawaddy, while significant in scale with over 13,000 arrests, will likely just displace the problem. The core leadership and their capital are fluid. They will simply migrate to another under-governed border area in the region and set up shop again. We are likely to see a ‘whack-a-mole’ scenario for the foreseeable future, where state actors launch high-profile raids in one location only for the syndicates to re-emerge in another. Unless there is a fundamental shift toward coordinated, cross-border law enforcement that targets the financial kingpins rather than just the captive workforce, this criminal ecosystem will continue to thrive and adapt.
