The rapid expansion of cybercrime and online scam networks across mainland Southeast Asia has emerged as one of the most complex non-traditional security challenges confronting the region today. What initially appeared as a digital and financial crime problem blurred the line between human slavery and organised transnational cybercrimes. For India, whose citizens are primary targets of online scams and victims of cyber slavery and are also at times complicit in the crime, this trend poses direct human security and diplomatic challenges. Within this context, India–Thailand cooperation, embedded in the broader Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) framework, assumes renewed strategic relevance as Thailand functions as a geographic gateway, key enforcement partner, and bridge within ASEAN, enabling India to address these networks more effectively at their source, transit corridors, and digital nodes rather than responding only reactively.
Beyond financial fraud, these operations increasingly generate multidimensional human security risks. Individuals trafficked into scam compounds face threats to their personal security through confinement, violence, and coercion, while victims of online fraud experience significant economic insecurity through large financial losses. At the same time, deceptive recruitment practices targeting young jobseekers and migrants expose structural vulnerabilities within digital labour markets and migration pathways across Asia.
Online scams originating in Southeast Asia—ranging from investment and romance fraud to cryptocurrency and phishing operations—have grown in scale, sophistication, and geographic reach. These operations are no longer small, decentralised criminal enterprises. Instead, they function as industrialised networks, often operating out of tightly controlled compounds in conflict-affected or weakly governed areas of Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. A defining feature of these scam centres is their reliance on trafficked and coerced labour, including foreign nationals lured through fake job advertisements and later subjected to physical abuse, confinement, and threats.
This convergence of cybercrime and forced labour has given rise to what is increasingly described as “cyber slavery.” Victims are compelled to perpetrate scams under coercion, blurring traditional distinctions between offenders and victims. Many young individuals with proper academic backgrounds, who can speak good English and possess technical skills, from southern Indian states like Tamil Nadu and Northern Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Bihar, prefer Southeast Asian countries due to their proximity and higher pay packages. They are mainly recruited as “Digital Sales and Marketing Executives” or “Customer Support Service”. —have featured prominently among those rescued from such operations in recent years.
These dynamics illustrate how cyber scams increasingly intersect with broader human security concerns. The issue extends beyond criminal fraud to encompass the protection of individuals from trafficking, unsafe migration, and exploitative labour conditions within digitally mediated economies. Understanding cyber scams through this lens highlights the need for responses that address both the criminal networks involved and the vulnerabilities that allow individuals to be recruited into such systems.
Thailand occupies a critical yet complex position within this regional cybercrime landscape. While not the principal site of scam compounds, many victims of cyber slavery are taken through Thailand en route to scam centres in neighbouring countries, while others are rescued, detained, or repatriated from Thai territory. Financial transactions linked to scam operations also frequently intersect with Thai banking and digital payment systems.
Thai authorities have periodically undertaken crackdowns, coordinated rescues, and bilateral engagements with neighbouring states. However, these responses remain largely reactive and nationally bounded, shaped by structural constraints such as limited jurisdiction over criminal networks operating across borders—particularly in conflict-affected areas of Myanmar—as well as diplomatic sensitivities and fragmented governance along border regions that restrict sustained cross-border enforcement. Thailand’s strategic balancing act—managing border security, economic interests, and diplomatic relations—further limits its ability to pursue proactive operations, particularly amid Myanmar’s ongoing instability. Nevertheless, Thailand’s institutional capacity and centrality within ASEAN position it as a potential convenor for broader regional cooperation on cybercrime and trafficking.
The Indian Embassy in Bangkok, along with the Consulate in Chiang Mai, has coordinated the repatriation of rescued Indian nationals, routing them through transit locations such as the Andaman Islands before their return to the mainland. Between 2022 and 2025, approximately 6,998 individuals were rescued from cyber scam compounds across the region, including 2,168 from Myanmar alone. However, despite these efforts, many individuals remain trapped in scam compounds, still awaiting rescue and repatriation.
The Indian government, through the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) established in 2020, has intensified efforts to curb cyber-enabled financial crimes. Between 2020 and 2025, the I4C identified over 1.9 million mule accounts, blocked 805 fraudulent apps and 3,266 website links, and helped prevent suspicious transactions worth approximately US$245 million. Suspected recruiters have also been arrested. The National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal has registered over 143,000 FIRs, and more than six lakh suspicious data points have been shared with enforcement agencies and financial intermediaries.
Complementing these enforcement measures, the Ministry of External Affairs has, since 2022, issued repeated public advisories cautioning Indian citizens—particularly technology-skilled youth—against deceptive overseas employment offers in countries such as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar. These advisories emphasise the importance of verifying job opportunities through authorised and credible channels to reduce the risk of being drawn into trafficking-linked cyber scam operations.
Despite these initiatives, India’s response remains largely reactive, focused on rescue, repatriation, and financial fraud mitigation after crimes occur. While necessary, these responses primarily manage the aftermath of cyber-enabled exploitation rather than addressing the structural vulnerabilities—such as deceptive recruitment networks, unsafe migration pathways, and weak cross-border enforcement—that enable individuals to be trafficked into scam compounds.
What remains underdeveloped is a strategic framework that integrates cybercrime into India’s broader regional security and migration policies. Intelligence-sharing with Southeast Asian partners remains episodic, financial investigations often stop at national borders, and labour mobility governance has yet to adapt to the realities of digital-era exploitation. Strengthening the capacity of law enforcement, cybercrime investigators, and diplomatic officials dealing with such cases is also critical, particularly in areas such as digital forensics, financial tracking, victim identification, and cross-border investigation procedures. These gaps highlight the need for deeper institutionalised cooperation with regional partners—particularly Thailand—given its central role as a transit hub and enforcement actor within mainland Southeast Asia.
Online scams are inherently transnational and digitally mediated, often operating through networks that span multiple jurisdictions, financial systems, and communication infrastructures across Southeast Asia. Scam compounds may be physically located in one country, recruit victims from another, and target consumers in distant markets using online platforms and cross-border payment systems. As a result, no single state can effectively address the problem in isolation. Regional cooperation through blocs like ASEAN becomes essential for coordinating law enforcement responses, harmonising legal frameworks, and facilitating intelligence and financial information sharing among member states.
ASEAN has been trying to take steps in order to deal with this rising issue effectively. An ASEAN Declaration has been issued on 10 September 2025 to strengthen regional cooperation against cybercrime and online scams. The declaration seeks to enhance law enforcement coordination, information sharing, and legal frameworks, while disrupting scam syndicates, illicit financial flows, and supporting victim protection through public–private partnerships. The ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Transnational Crime (SOMTC) has been tasked to monitor and review the implementation of this Declaration. However, the time frame and other mechanisms are yet to be worked out.
Cybercrime also falls across multiple ASEAN silos—ICT cooperation, transnational crime, labour, and human rights—resulting in fragmented policy responses. ASEAN’s long-standing principles of non-interference and sovereignty, along with divergent national priorities, have at times slowed collective action. Yet ASEAN’s ability to coordinate a meaningful regional response will also shape its soft power as a regional organisation: effective action would reinforce its credibility as a platform capable of addressing emerging non-traditional security threats, while weak coordination could risk undermining confidence in ASEAN’s institutional relevance.
The Philippines, as the current ASEAN Chair, has expressed growing concern over cyber slavery affecting its citizens, particularly in scam operations based in Myanmar and other parts of mainland Southeast Asia. This may increase pressure for faster and more coordinated regional responses. Myanmar’s military authorities, despite allegations of complicity in allowing scam compounds to operate, have recently claimed to be acting against such networks. As the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has won the elections in January, the junta may seek to demonstrate greater visible and performative action against cyber compounds though this may not translate into sustained enforcement. Any meaningful effort to curb cybercrime in Myanmar will require engagement with a broader range of stakeholders, given the fragmented control on the ground.
Reframing cybercrime through a human security lens alters the policy conversation in meaningful ways. First, it puts the focus back on victims—many of whom are migrants and young jobseekers—rather than concentrating exclusively on perpetrators. Second, it connects cybercrime to broader social and structural drivers, including unemployment, unsafe migration pathways, digital labour markets, and weak regulatory oversight of online platforms. Third, it allows for cooperation that prioritises prevention, protection, and rehabilitation alongside enforcement. For India and Thailand, adopting a human security framework provides an opportunity to lead without directly challenging ASEAN’s normative constraints. By framing cyber slavery as a form of transnational labour exploitation and organised crime, rather than a rights-based intervention, both countries can pursue deeper cooperation while maintaining regional sensitivities.
A recalibrated agenda should begin with strengthening India-Thailand bilateral cooperation. Framing such initiatives within a human security perspective would ensure that cooperation addresses not only cyber fraud and financial crime but also the protection, rescue, and rehabilitation of individuals affected by trafficking-linked scam networks. This could include establishing a dedicated mechanism focused on cyber-enabled trafficking and scam networks, institutionalising intelligence-sharing on recruitment agents and financial flows, and developing joint standard operating procedures for victim rescue, rehabilitation, and repatriation. Financial cooperation—particularly in tracking cryptocurrency transactions, mule accounts, and shell companies—should be prioritised. Thailand along with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) held the International Conference on the Global Partnership against Online Scams is held in Bangkok, last year on 17 December that was attended by 338 participants, including ministerial-level representatives from nine countries including India. This shows the importance given to this rising crime by each nation.
At the ASEAN level, India and Thailand could advocate for a focused working group on cyber slavery and online scams, framed within the existing transnational crime architecture. Thailand’s role as a bridge between India and ASEAN makes it well-suited to convene such efforts without politicising the issue. Engagement with private sector actors—banks, fintech firms, social media platforms—must also move beyond voluntary compliance towards regulatory accountability. Finally, cybercrime should be integrated into emerging discussions on non-traditional security in the Bay of Bengal and BIMSTEC. Linking land-based cybercrime networks with maritime financial and logistical routes would align with India’s broader vision for regional security cooperation.
Further Reading on E-International Relations
