Human trafficking victims left homeless after military crackdown on online fraud ring (Myanmar, December 5, 2025).Image: Keystone
July 28, 2026, 1:52 p.mJuly 28, 2026, 1:52 p.m
According to the UN Organization for Migration (IOM), hundreds of thousands of people are abused by human traffickers for online fraud every year. They would be lured abroad with false promises of well-paid work, imprisoned, monitored and forced to take part in fraudulent schemes.
On World Day Against Human Trafficking (July 30), the IOM presented a new strategy to protect people from this exploitation.
The IOM describes this practice by criminal gangs as one of the fastest growing forms of human trafficking. The numbers have been rising rapidly for two or three years, said IOM boss Amy Pope. She assumes that around 300,000 people work in such centers worldwide. Not everyone is a victim of human traffickers.
Academics as victims of human trafficking
What is new is that these gangs are specifically looking for people with good English skills and a university degree, now increasingly from Africa, said Pope. Many are so desperate to find a job that they don’t check offers carefully enough. Some people are encouraged to travel to a distant country with a tourist visa – that is a warning sign.
Amy Pope, head of IOM, explains the new form of human trafficking.Image: keystone
In the past, human traffickers often targeted people with little school education who were forced into prostitution abroad or for months of inhumane work on fishing boats.
Billions in damage
The UN Office for Drugs and Crime Control (UNODC) in Vienna has estimated the damage caused by such criminal activities in fraud centers: According to this information, it amounted to up to 114.1 billion dollars (around 100 billion euros) last year in East and Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand alone.
Between 2022 and 2025, the IOM supported more than 3,500 people from 39 countries who were held against their will in such fraud centers and were released, for example from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Kenya. Survivors reported, among other things, torture and sexual exploitation. They are often threatened and beaten there, and supposedly have to pay off debts they have accumulated, for example through travel. In some cases, their families at home are being blackmailed.
Victims all over the world
Victims of the scams are people all over the world who are tricked into believing that they have problems with their bank accounts in order to get passwords and then empty the accounts, said Pope.
Among other things, the IOM works with survivors who report the problem on social media to warn others. (nil/sda/dpa)