🔒 (All women’s names have been changed to protect their identity.)
📍 Manila, Philippines
An hour north of the bustling capital — where the crowded streets slowly fade into rolling hills — a little boy in a bright Batman shirt stands outside his family’s tiny convenience store. 🦇🏪
With shy excitement, he leads us past shelves of candy, chips, and lottery tickets 🍬🥠🎟️ until we reach the simple living space tucked behind the shop.
There, he proudly tells us his name, shares that he’s only three years old, and then his smile softens as he admits…
💬 “I miss my mom.” 😢
Since April, the boy has been looked after by his aunt Rose and his grandparents 👵👴💞 — caring for him and his younger brother while their mother, Lily, left to take what she believed was a customer-service job in Taiwan. ✈️💼
But instead of a stable job, Lily became one of hundreds of thousands trafficked into the center of Asia’s growing scam-industry machine. 🌏💻🚫
For months now, Lily says she has been held captive and tortured in Myanmar — horrific details that Rose keeps secret from the rest of the family to spare them from even deeper heartbreak. 💔🕯️
She wants to die there
In the rare messages Lily has been able to send, she tells Rose that “she wants to die there.” 😢💬
Rose’s reply never changes — she types the same comforting plea every time:
👉 “Please don’t do that… your child always asks me when you’re coming home.” 💛👶
🎯 Women Targeted for Scams — and Worse
Experts warn that traffickers are now deliberately targeting women to fill roles in their rapidly expanding scam operations.
Why?
Because their faces and voices are often used in romance schemes 🎭💘 designed to lure victims across the world.
Inside these walled-off scam compounds — which operate like mini-cities, complete with guards, dorms, and shops 🚫🏙️ — many women are also forced into sex work to serve men living inside. 💔🔐
🇵🇭 Why Filipino Women Are at Risk
In the Philippines, where finding a stable, well-paid job can feel nearly impossible 💼😔, many women take the risk of working abroad:
- to pay for their children’s schooling 🎒✏️
- to buy a home 🏡
- to support aging parents 👵❤️
But criminal networks prey on this hope — twisting it into a trap.
Families like Lily’s lose not only a daughter, sister, or mother… but also the household’s main breadwinner. 💸💔
🕵️♀️ What Survivors Told Investigators
In a months-long investigation, CNN spoke with several women who described hellish conditions inside the scam compounds:
- forced to trick victims from the U.S. to Australia 🌍💻
- trapped in romance scams, crypto scams, investment schemes 🕳️💰
- monitored 24/7 and punished if they failed to hit quotas 😨🔗
These were ordinary women — mothers, students, daughters — turned into tools of crime by traffickers who control their every breath. 🕯️
Women trapped inside these compounds — not only from Asia, but also from Africa and Europe 🌍 — told CNN they were forced to memorize scripts and use AI face and voice filters to trick victims online. 🤖🎭
Those who failed to follow orders were punished with beatings, torture, and sexual abuse. 😣🔗💔
Across Southeast Asia, many of these scam compounds are run by Chinese crime syndicates 🇨🇳🕴️.
Rose says her sister Lily and other women “were promised a good life and a good salary… but when they arrive, it’s the complete opposite.”
👉 “It looks like hell.” 🔥😔
🔥 Life Inside
And hell is something Casie knows all too well.
A single mother of four 👩👧👦💛, Casie was no stranger to working abroad to support her family. She had previously worked in Dubai as a sales assistant, and when she saw a Facebook job posting in January — a customer-service role in Hong Kong — advertised by a fellow Filipina, she didn’t hesitate to grab the opportunity. ✈️💼
But the job was a lie.
Instead of landing in Hong Kong, Casie was trafficked to Cambodia and forced to run extortion scams. 🚫🇰🇭
Taking a slow, steady breath, Casie recited to CNN the exact script she was ordered to use:
📞 “Hi, good day. My name is Casie. I’m calling from Verizon. May I speak to Mr. John?”
She paused — then delivered the line meant to terrify victims:
⚠️ “Your SIM card is used for fraudulent messages, money laundering and buying an illegal gun. After two hours, we report you.”
Casie said the company she was trapped in was just one of dozens operating out of the same building — running everything from:
- romance scams ❤️🎭
- investment scams 📉💸
- loan scams 💰📞
to more dangerous crimes like: - drug trafficking 💊🚫
- wildlife trafficking 🐅⚠️
All under one roof — a factory of fear, exploitation, and human suffering. 🕯️
Casie wanted no part of the criminal world she’d been forced into. One day, she stumbled across a Facebook post from her recruiter — advertising Filipino workers for sale for 60,000 pesos (about $1,000) each. 😡💔
It was the moment that broke her.
Enraged, Casie confronted the recruiter face-to-face.
She remembers shouting through tears and fury:
👉 “Why would you do this to us? You’re also Filipino! We’re Filipinos — why would you Lie to us?” 🇵🇭😤
Casie says she punched the woman until she bled — a burst of rage fueled by months of fear, humiliation, and betrayal. 🥊😢
“Deep inside, I was scared,” she admitted. After months of beatings, forced standing, and withheld meals, she feared she might be killed for fighting back. 😣🔗
✨ A Hard-Won Rescue
In April, Casie was finally rescued with the help of the Philippine Embassy in Cambodia 🇰🇭🤝🇵🇭.
Diplomats from countries with large numbers of victims have taken the lead in negotiating releases and pressuring local authorities to raid scam compounds.
But diplomacy can only go so far — especially in Cambodia and Myanmar, where many scam compounds sit inside areas controlled or contested by armed groups. ⚠️🔫
In some cases, victims have no other choice but to risk escape on their own, running through jungles or slipping out at night. 🌙🏃♀️💔
🏚️ The Families Left Behind
When women like Lily and Casie go abroad to work, families at home rely on their income to survive. But when they become trapped in forced labor, the whole household collapses under the weight of sudden poverty.
Charlotte knows this pain too well. Her daughter was trafficked to Myanmar in January, leaving six children behind. 👶👧👦💔
“It is so hard to raise them, to feed them, to send them to school,” she said, describing life in her small home south of Manila.
“I had to sell most of our things. We barely have electricity or water. There’s nothing left.” ⚡🚫💧
For Charlotte, other families of trafficked women have become her lifeline.
They gather in each other’s homes, share scarce information, and pass along every update — no matter how terrifying or heartbreaking — from inside the scam compounds. 🕯️🤝💬
Together, they wait, pray, and hope for the day their daughters come home.
Charlotte showed CNN the photos of her daughter’s injuries — dark bruises covering her body, even across her lower back and bottom. 💔📸
To Charlotte, every mark is proof of the abuse her daughter has suffered. 😢🔗
Twice, her daughter told her she had been forced to strip naked in front of her bosses, who then filmed her for clients to watch.
“She had no bra. She was naked. She was ashamed,” Charlotte said.
💬 “I cry when I remember it.” 😭
🔥 When Scamming Isn’t Enough
Most women are trafficked into these compounds to work as online scammers, said Daniele Marchesi, Philippines country manager for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 🌐📉
But he warned that:
👉 “If you’re not performing, you might be moved to another building and given another kind of duty.”
That “other duty” often means sex trafficking — forced sex work, sexual punishment, or assaults meant to break the victims into obedience. 💔🚫
Reports of sexual abuse inside these scam compounds are widespread, though many details remain unverified due to the danger victims face in speaking out. 🕯️😔
🙏 Families Beg for Help — With No Answer
For months, families like Charlotte’s and Rose’s have pleaded with the Philippine government to bring their daughters home.
But they say their cries have gone unanswered. 😢🇵🇭
Rose asked in anguish:
👉 “Are you going to wait until somebody dies before you do something?” 💔
🌏 A Global Crisis, Not Just a Local Problem
Gilbert Cruz — former executive director of the Philippines’ Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission — told CNN the issue has grown beyond the control of any single country.
💬 “This is a worldwide problem.”
He explained that as long as some countries allow these compounds to operate, Filipinos will continue to be lured abroad by the promise of higher pay. 🌍💸
The Philippines, he added, is trying to protect its people by giving them what they deserve —
✨ a decent life
✨ a safe, dignified job
✨ access to education
🏢 A Scam Compound Fit for a Millionaire
Most scam compounds in Southeast Asia are found in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.
But in September, CNN was granted a rare look inside a former compound in a small town in the Philippines, located three hours north of Manila. 🚗🏞️
What they found inside was shocking — a facility built not like a prison… but almost like a mansion for a wealthy crime boss.
🏚️ A Hidden Empire of Scams
The 10-hectare property — complete with sprawling mansions and even an Olympic-sized swimming pool for the bosses 🏊♂️🏰 — was raided last year by the Philippines’ anti-organized crime agency.
Since then, it has stayed eerily untouched, frozen in time… a chilling snapshot of the secretive world of the scam industry. 🕸️🔒
Stepping inside, cobwebs cling to a massive office floor that once seated hundreds of trafficked workers 💻👥.
Computer monitors are heaped in corners, unused SIM cards litter desks, and notebooks filled with step-by-step scam instructions lie open.
One booklet — “A Complete Guide to Advancing Relationships and Communicating (Five Phases)” — teaches scammers how to woo victims and time their fake investment pitches.
Scripted lines included:
💬 “I hope we’re in love now and can earn our future wealth.” 💔💸
In the boss’s office, a 24-pack of Red Bull and migraine pills sit untouched on the desk — a bizarre glimpse into the pressure behind the operation. 🥤💊
In the abandoned dorms, bras, makeup, and snack wrappers sit scattered across beds, as if workers were forced to flee in seconds. 🩱💄🍫
Scammers’ notebooks contained manipulative lines such as:
📝 “After breaking up with my ex, I’ve been focusing on making money.”
📝 “I’ve said so much, but you’re still unwilling to get involved. Don’t you trust my abilities?”
🏰 A Mansion Above the Misery
Across the compound sits a five-story mansion overlooking the camp — the former home of Huang Zhiyang, the China-born fugitive accused of running the criminal empire. 👤🏯
Inside were religious statues and an entire room converted into a shrine, meant to “protect” him spiritually. 🛐✨
On the top floor, behind double-bolted doors, lay his private suite: a bedroom and study, complete with
📚 a Montessori parenting book
📚 English language textbooks
A lavish wine cellar — stocked with Macallan whisky and snake wine 🍷🐍 — hid a secret escape tunnel that authorities say Huang used to flee. His location remains unknown, and he is now wanted for human trafficking. 🚨
The opulence on display reveals how much one compound can generate in this billion-dollar industry — and raises troubling questions about how such a palace of crime could be built in a quiet town without suspicion. 🏙️💸
⚠️ The Government Crackdown
Over the past two years, the Marcos administration has intensified the crackdown on scam centers — locally known as POGOs (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators). 🎰📉
Originally welcomed by the previous administration for bringing jobs and investment, POGOs quickly devolved into hubs of forced labor, trafficking, and organized crime.
Authorities say dismantling these operations is extremely difficult:
- Some local officials may be involved 🕴️💰
- Criminal gangs are highly sophisticated ⚙️🔫
🤖 The Future of Scamming: AI, Deepfakes, and Digital Lies
Scammers are evolving fast. In Telegram channels, they buy and sell tools — fake photos, luxury-travel packages, and edited lifestyle images ✈️👜✨ — to convince victims they’re wealthy or successful.
They’re also trading:
- advanced automated translation tools 🌐
- AI face filters and voice-morphing tech 🤖🎙️
Sara, originally from South Africa 🇿🇦, told CNN she used these filters to appear as different Asian women while working as a “model” inside the notorious KK Park compound on the Thai-Myanmar border.
“I was Linda, I was Jenny,” she said. “Each persona had a different life — one had a child, one didn’t… one outgoing, one shy.” 🎭
Sara was trafficked in 2022 after being promised an IT job. Because of her perfect English, bosses renamed her Cessa, short for Princessa. 👑
Whenever a victim was ready to invest big, models like her were brought in for a video call to seal the scam.
With almost no notice, Sara had to study scammers’ chat histories and slip into a new identity using AI filters.
👉 “You become an actor. You memorize scripts. You haven’t slept. You’ve been tortured. And you still have to perform.” 😔🎙️
The worst part, she said, was being forced into sexual conversations with victims. 💔
💸 The “Model Market”
Some models earned up to $6,000 a month — but this money could only be spent inside the fake world of the compound’s internal malls, cinemas, and hotels. 🎥🏢
In Telegram audition videos, women from across Asia and Eastern Europe list their credentials like job applicants:
💬 “I have experience as an AI model… I can work under pressure… I hope you give me a chance.”
One contract from Cambodia detailed duties like:
- taking video calls
- adjusting emotions to match the victim
- studying luxury goods, golf, rugby, cars, and the lifestyles of the wealthy 🏌️♂️🚗💼
Women were essential to the scam industry — but also the easiest to control.
Sara said bosses constantly threatened them with sex slavery:
👉 “They’d say, ‘Do you want to be a sex slave?’ They knew that was our greatest fear.” 😨
🩱 Ghosts of the Past
In one former scam compound in the Philippines, clothing still hangs in the abandoned dorms — silent reminders of the people who lived and suffered there. 🧥🕯️
After nine months, Sara was allowed to leave KK Park to “care for her sick mother” — on condition she return.
She never did.
🏡 Coming Home — And Starting Over
Casie has been home since April. But the crushing debts her family accumulated while she was enslaved in Cambodia still haunt her.
💬 “After that tragedy, after the human trafficking… I don’t know how to start again.”
Lily finally returned home in November — to her little boy in the Batman shirt and his younger brother. 🦇👦👶
Like Casie, she must put on a brave face and rebuild her life from the ashes.
Her children are counting on her. ❤️✨
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