Scam compounds in Cambodia draw Southeast Asian workers who answer online job advertisements, then forced to run pig-butchering fraud. Research on cyber-enabled fraud has concentrated on the Global North. This study examines scam-forced Vietnamese labour (SFVL) exploited by Chinese cyber-enabled crimes (CCEC), combining content analysis of ten Vietnamese cases from 2018 to 2023 with interviews of 12 police officers. Its abstract reports structured networks with multiple layers within a single scam syndicate, Chinese figures leading Vietnamese and other accomplices, and complex victim-offender overlaps, although only one case confirmed such an overlap clearly.
Research Objectives
- Identify the patterns of scam-forced criminality in Vietnam, including offender and victim profiles.
- Examine the nexus of cybercrime and human trafficking in Vietnam before, during, and after the pandemic.
- Explain how Chinese cyber-enabled crimes (CCEC) operate to exploit scam-forced Vietnamese labour (SFVL).
- Analyse victim-offender overlaps from a Southeast Asian standpoint.
Methodology
- Mixed qualitative design: content analysis of ten Vietnamese cases from 2018 to 2023 plus law enforcement interviews.
- Cases came through snowball contacts and geography-based criteria; the author states the selection is not representative.
- Twelve officers, captain to lieutenant colonel, averaging eight years of service, interviewed in Vietnamese for 35 to 55 minutes each.
- Ethical approval: Institutional Review Board of the United States Institute of Peace, 23 July 2023.
Key Findings
- Court judgements and police reports identified 49 Vietnamese offenders across the ten cases, prosecuted for trafficking, trafficking of a person under 16, brokering illegal emigration, or extortion. No evidence confirmed any belonged to a CCEC group.
- Victim-offender overlap was clearly confirmed in only one case, though almost all interviewees acknowledged the trend and other cases showed blurred coexistence of former victims and current offenders.
- All ten cases involved deception, coercion, job advertisements, social media recruitment, recruiter commissions, and illegal border crossing. Zalo and Facebook predominated; Weibo served Chinese speakers. Debt bondage appeared in seven cases.
- The author models CCEC networks in six levels, big bosses down to soldiers (the victims), but could not confirm the top level. The illustrative case (Svay Rieng, Cambodia, March 2022 to January 2023) recruited nearly 100 Vietnamese, counted over 1,000 victims, and yielded over VND 67 billion (around USD 3 million).
- The data showed no Chinese offender prosecuted under the Vietnam Criminal Code during the study period; Vietnam codes foreign offenders only as "foreigner", limiting data collection.
Recommendations
- Research the three nexuses: offenders and victims, human trafficking and scam-forced criminality, and technology and crime.
- Apply crime script analysis and the 25 techniques of crime prevention to identify interventions.
- Build a larger regional database, particularly with Cambodia and China, before classifying CCEC networks as loose, hierarchical, or adaptable.
- Address the barriers identified: most agencies lack dedicated CCEC units, offenders are not classified by nationality, and mutual legal assistance is limited.
Key Takeaways
- Trafficking and cyber fraud converge: recruitment ran on open job advertisements promising "simple job, high salary" rather than on grooming tactics.
- Enforcement reached recruiters and enablers, not the core; all Chinese big bosses in the study remained at large, leaving the full ring unconfirmed.
- Many such operations sit just over the borders among Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar; the study names limited mutual legal assistance a barrier.
References
Luong, H. T. (2025). "Simple job, high salary": Unveiling the complexity of scam-forced criminality in Southeast Asia. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12, Article 1305. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05605-1
Full text (Open Access): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-05605-1
