Recruited for IT Work, Forced to Scam: Sri Lankans in Myawaddy's Cybercrime Compounds

Evidence cut-off: 28 August 2026
Procedural status: multi-agency trafficking response; reported recruiter investigations and remand; no located public trial disposition
Research mode: public-record documentary case study

Method and status. This article is based on publicly available records and reporting checked through the evidence cut-off. It distinguishes allegations, intelligence warnings, releases from compounds, rescue operations, border transfers, immigration screening and completed repatriations. It does not determine civil or criminal liability. No original interviews, non-public files or pre-publication outreach were used for this edition. This is independent academic and investigative analysis, not legal, financial, migration or recovery advice, and was not reviewed or endorsed by Cardiff Metropolitan University. Readers and affected parties may submit documentary corrections through the website’s corrections channel; material corrections and later developments will be recorded as dated updates.

Sri Lankans did not enter one Myawaddy scheme at one time. The public record describes a continuing recruitment pipeline: offers of well-paid information-technology or customer-service work, travel through third countries, movement across the Thai–Myanmar border, confinement in cyber-scam compounds and demands to deceive strangers online. Different groups were released and returned over several years. Other people were reportedly still inside while new recruits continued to arrive.

That distinction changes the case. This is not simply a cryptocurrency fraud in which Sri Lankan participants lost deposits. It is also a trafficking case in which some Sri Lankans were potential victims of forced criminality. At the other end of the computer were separate victims—the people targeted for romance, investment, trading and other online scams. One person’s coerced participation does not erase another person’s financial loss. Nor does a scam victim’s loss establish that every worker in a compound acted voluntarily.

The strongest public finding is therefore structural. Recruitment, exploitation, criminal proceeds and repatriation formed different parts of a cross-border system. Sri Lanka’s records document repeated diplomatic rescues and warnings. They do not yet provide a transparent, consolidated account of recruiter prosecutions, survivor compensation or the crypto-asset trail.

What the public record establishes

Sri Lanka’s National Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force described purported IT vacancies, high salaries and interviews conducted through digital platforms. It said some recruits travelled on visit visas, initially went to Dubai and were then moved through Thailand into Myanmar. Once inside cybercrime centres, workers were allegedly compelled to conduct online scams and subjected to threats, assault, torture or electric shocks if they resisted or failed to meet targets (Ministry of Defence, 2024b; 2024c; 2025).

The language is important. Sri Lankan official statements repeatedly call the affected people victims of human trafficking and say they were forcibly employed in cybercrime centres. The International Organization for Migration similarly described repatriated Sri Lankans as trafficked into forced criminal activity or cyber scamming (International Organization for Migration, 2024a; 2024b; 2024c; 2025).

These statements support an analysis of trafficking for forced criminality. They do not establish the individual experience of every person who returned. The public releases do not identify each compound, period of confinement, task, victim target, payment route or level of coercion. They also do not name every recruiter, controller or beneficial owner.

A multi-year case, not one cumulative rescue

Numbers in this case are unusually easy to misuse. Some official figures count people returned through Thailand. Others count people whose rescue Myanmar assisted. Some are operational snapshots of those believed trapped or released. Their periods overlap, their geographical descriptions vary, and later recruitment may have added new people.

“Myawaddy” also requires geographical care. Sri Lankan releases commonly use the name for cybercrime centres in the border area without assigning every cohort to a named compound. Foreign records discuss Shwe Kokko and armed-group-controlled territory, but they do not publish a crosswalk connecting each Sri Lankan to a particular facility or operator. It would therefore be unsupported to place every cohort in Shwe Kokko, KK Park or any other named site. This article uses Myawaddy as the geographical description found in Sri Lankan official records and identifies an armed group or compound only when the cited source does so within its own procedural limits (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism, 2025c; United States Department of the Treasury, 2025).

The following table therefore records cohorts and stages without producing a cumulative total.

Public-record date	Figure	What the source actually says	Stage or scope
4 March 2024	8	Myanmar authorities had rescued eight of a reported 56 Sri Lankans in four locations; the eight were at Myawaddy Central Police Station	Rescue and police custody, not return
11 April 2024	8	The same group was handed across the border to Thai authorities and received at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Thailand	Border transfer and embassy reception
18 April 2024	8	IOM reported their safe repatriation with government support	Completed repatriation
1 August 2024	89 / 40 / 54	A Defence Ministry notice said 89 had travelled, 40 had been released and 54 remained trapped	Contemporaneous official snapshot; internally inconsistent arithmetic
6 September 2024	20	IOM reported a further group repatriated	Completed repatriation
17 December 2024	27	IOM reported another group repatriated	Completed repatriation
3 February 2025	91 / 18	The Foreign Ministry said Myanmar had assisted the rescue and repatriation of 91 during 2022–2024 and that 18 remained	Myanmar-assisted multi-year scope
13 February 2025	58 / 18	The Foreign Ministry said Thailand had facilitated the safe return of 58 since 2023 and referred to 18 remaining	Thailand-facilitated scope; not interchangeable with the 91
17–18 March 2025	14	The Foreign Ministry announced rescue and scheduled repatriation for the following day	Rescue plus scheduled return
6–8 May 2025	15	The Bangkok Embassy recorded rescue on 6 May and scheduled return on 7 May; IOM subsequently reported repatriation	Rescue followed by completed repatriation
16 December 2025	25	The Bangkok Embassy reported safe repatriation that day	Completed repatriation

Sources: Ada Derana (2024a; 2024b); International Organization for Migration (2024a; 2024b; 2024c; 2025); Ministry of Defence (2024a); Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism (2025a; 2025b; 2025d); Embassy and Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka in Bangkok (2025a; 2025b).

Adding the rows would manufacture a number the sources do not establish. The 91 and 58 are differently scoped summaries, not necessarily separate groups. The March and May 2025 cohorts may include people counted as remaining in February, but the releases do not provide names or a crosswalk. The December cohort arose later and cannot be assumed either to be new recruits or part of an earlier count.

The 1 August 2024 notice needs an additional caution. Its three figures—89 travelled, 40 released and 54 trapped—do not reconcile arithmetically. The discrepancy may reflect timing, categories or a drafting error, but the source does not explain it. The appropriate response is to preserve the figures as published, not repair them by assumption (Ministry of Defence, 2024a).

Rescue is not one event

The first documented 2024 cohort shows the sequence clearly. On 4 March, the Foreign Ministry confirmed through reporting that Myanmar authorities had rescued eight Sri Lankans and placed them at the central police station in Myawaddy. More than a month later, on 11 April, Burmese immigration handed the group to Thai officials at the Friendship Bridge; the Sri Lankan Embassy in Thailand then received them. IOM recorded their repatriation on 18 April (Ada Derana, 2024a; 2024b; International Organization for Migration, 2024a).

The same problem appeared in 2025. Following meetings on 27 and 28 February, Sri Lanka’s ambassador in Myanmar discussed people who had been released from scam centres and were reportedly in the custody of the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army. The ministry said screening and verification by Myanmar authorities were required before handover for repatriation (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism, 2025c).

Release from the entity controlling a compound therefore did not equal consular custody. Consular custody did not itself resolve immigration clearance or travel. A scheduled flight was not completed repatriation. These are not semantic refinements: each interval can affect safety, identification as a trafficking victim, access to documents and the risk of re-trafficking.

The May 2025 records are more precise. The Bangkok Embassy said 15 Sri Lankans were rescued on 6 May after embassy officials crossed the border checkpoint, engaged Kayin State and immigration officials and arranged the process. It announced repatriation for 7 May. IOM then reported on 8 May that 15 men trafficked for forced criminal activities had been repatriated (Embassy and Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka in Bangkok, 2025a; International Organization for Migration, 2025).

The December record is clearer still: the Bangkok Embassy stated that 25 Sri Lankans were safely repatriated on 16 December after Thai clearances and travel support involving IOM and non-governmental partners (Embassy and Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka in Bangkok, 2025b). That is the latest publicly identified Myawaddy repatriation cohort located for this review.

The 3 February date that should not be silently repaired

The Foreign Ministry page is published and dated 3 February 2025. Its body, however, says Minister Vijitha Herath’s telephone conversation with Myanmar’s foreign minister occurred “today (03 February 2024)”. It then states that Myanmar assisted the rescue and repatriation of 91 Sri Lankans between 2022 and 2024 and that the minister sought assistance for 18 remaining people (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism, 2025a).

Later ministry releases repeat the 3 February 2024 date. That repetition does not resolve whether the call happened in 2024, whether “today” was retained in error, or whether the year was copied incorrectly. This article therefore records two facts: the page was published on 3 February 2025; its body gives 3 February 2024 for the call. It does not silently substitute one date for the other.

Trafficked workers and scam targets are different victims

OHCHR’s regional analysis describes people recruited through false job promises, transported into compounds, confined and compelled through violence, debt and threats to conduct online fraud. It treats this as trafficking into forced criminality and urges states to apply victim identification and the non-punishment principle to unlawful acts compelled as a direct consequence of trafficking (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2023; 2026). UNODC likewise describes forced scam work as an emerging form of human trafficking (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2026). This is an international protection principle, not presented here as blanket immunity or a comprehensive Sri Lankan statutory defence.

This principle requires evidence, not a blanket label. A returnee may have been deceived, trafficked and coerced. Another person’s circumstances may be different. Screening should examine recruitment, movement, control, threats, working conditions, ability to leave, proceeds and conduct. It should not begin from the assumption that everyone found in a cybercrime compound was a willing offender. Nor should it assume that presence alone proves a particular offence.

The downstream victim remains real. Scam targets may lose savings, borrow money, reveal personal data or suffer severe psychological harm. Recognising coercion inside the compound does not minimise those injuries. It directs liability towards organisers, controllers, knowing facilitators and voluntary participants on the evidence, while protecting people exploited to perform the visible work.

Sri Lanka’s section 360C criminalises trafficking through recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt by specified coercive or deceptive means for exploitation, and it also addresses facilitating conduct. Liability and punishment arise through criminal process and proof; an official description of trafficking is not a conviction of a recruiter (Sri Lanka, 2006).

Where cryptocurrency fits—and where it does not

The wider regional system has a material cryptocurrency connection. OHCHR identifies romance-investment scams, crypto fraud and money laundering among the activities of South-East Asian scam operations. UNODC reports that cyberfraud syndicates have adopted cryptocurrency services and underground financial infrastructure to receive, layer and move proceeds (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2023; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2024).

In May 2025, the United States Treasury sanctioned the Karen National Army and named individuals for alleged roles in facilitating cyber scams, trafficking and cross-border smuggling in the Myawaddy area. Its official description explains a common method: trafficked workers build trust and direct targets towards bogus cryptocurrency or trading platforms showing fictitious returns. The designation is a United States administrative action. It is not a Sri Lankan court finding, and it does not establish that a particular Sri Lankan cohort worked in a KNA-linked facility (United States Department of the Treasury, 2025).

No public cohort-specific Sri Lankan record reviewed for this article identifies a wallet address, token, exchange account, transaction hash, platform, crypto amount or target account linked to a returnee. It would therefore be wrong to write that every Sri Lankan was forced to commit cryptocurrency fraud. The supported conclusion is narrower: crypto-investment deception and virtual-asset laundering are documented features of the regional scam-compound economy, while the Sri Lankan official cohort records generally use the broader descriptions “cybercrime” and “cyber scamming”.

That distinction matters for the arachchi.ge series. Sports Chain, OnmaxDT, F3C and MTFE concern schemes or platforms marketed directly to Sri Lankan participants. Myawaddy concerns a labour-recruitment and trafficking pipeline into a regional fraud industry. Cryptocurrency may be the downstream script or proceeds rail; it is not the sole legal or factual character of the case.

What happened to the alleged recruiters?

The earliest located Sri Lankan enforcement reporting is procedural and incomplete. On 23 December 2023, Ada Derana reported that three suspects had been arrested in Wattala and Trincomalee over alleged trafficking to Myanmar cyber camps. On 25 December, it reported a police statement that the CID’s Human Trafficking, Human Smuggling and Maritime Crimes Investigation Division had opened two special investigations involving four suspects—three Sri Lankans and a Chinese national—on four complaints (Ada Derana, 2023a; 2023b).

Daily Mirror subsequently reported that a Chinese national and three Sri Lankans had been arrested and remanded by the Negombo Magistrate’s Court in connection with seven cases (Daily Mirror, 2024). The article named the individuals, but this case study does not repeat their names because no public case numbers, charging documents or outcome were located and the procedural point can be reported without amplifying untested allegations.

These reports do not reconcile perfectly. The first mentions three arrests; the later accounts refer to four people and multiple investigations or cases. They may describe successive arrests or different procedural groupings, but the underlying police files and court record were not publicly accessible. Arrest, investigation and remand are not a charge, trial finding or proof of guilt.

Through 28 August 2026, this review did not locate a reliable public case number, charge sheet, Attorney-General decision, High Court indictment, trial result, conviction, acquittal, sentence, appeal or final asset order for those reported recruiter proceedings. That is a limitation of the public record, not proof that authorities abandoned the matter or that no proceeding exists.

Repatriation is an achievement, not the end of the case

The repeated rescue operations required cooperation across Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand, often involving immigration agencies, embassies, IOM and local authorities operating in a conflict-affected border region. Returning people safely is a concrete state action. It should not be dismissed because the prosecution record is incomplete.

But repatriation does not answer what followed. Public releases provide little aggregate information on formal victim identification, health and psychosocial care, debt, lost wages, compensation, witness protection, digital-evidence preservation or longer-term reintegration. IOM references protection and reintegration assistance in some releases, but no public cohort-level outcome dataset was located.

There is also no public asset account for the Sri Lankan case: no identified recruiter proceeds, restrained property, forfeiture, compensation order or victim distribution. The absence of a located record cannot be converted into a finding that nothing was traced or that nobody received support. It means only that the reviewed public record cannot show a recovery pathway.

In January 2026, Sri Lanka launched its National Strategic Action Plan to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking 2026–2030. The Defence Ministry presented it as a victim-centred framework covering prevention, protection, prosecution and partnership. Its June parliamentary briefing expressly recognised technology-enabled recruitment and forced criminality; a July national conference linked trafficking to cybercrime and money laundering and called for financial investigation (Ministry of Defence, 2026a; 2026b; 2026c). These are relevant policy advances. They do not dispose of the 2023 recruiter investigations, identify criminal responsibility or compensate a survivor.

What this case changes in the series

The Myawaddy record expands the meaning of a crypto-masked crime in three ways.

First, the visible online account may conceal exploited labour. A person sending scripted messages can be both the immediate instrument of a scam and a trafficking victim. Investigation has to move beyond the chat window to the recruitment chain, compound control, payment infrastructure and coercive conditions.

Second, crypto terminology can appear at several levels. It may be the product pitched to the downstream target, the false interface showing returns, the transfer rail or the laundering infrastructure. Those functions must be proved separately. “Crypto scam centre” is not evidence that every worker held crypto, controlled a wallet or understood the financial route.

Third, rescue statistics are not justice statistics. Release, screening, border transfer and arrival measure protection stages. Arrest and remand measure procedural stages. Conviction, forfeiture and compensation require different records. Combining them gives a false impression of either complete success or complete failure.

Public warning signs

Sri Lankan official warnings repeatedly identify a common route: unusually high salaries for overseas IT, data-entry or customer-service work; recruitment through social media or messaging applications; travel on a visit visa; an initial destination such as Dubai or Thailand; onward movement not disclosed in the employment contract; and pressure to bypass the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (Ministry of Defence, 2024b; 2024c; 2025).

Before travelling, applicants should verify the employer, recruitment agency, contract, work visa and destination through the SLBFE’s official processes. A video interview, professional-looking website or paid flight does not establish legitimacy. Nobody should surrender a passport, seed phrase, account password or remote access to a phone on the basis of a job offer.

If a person is already at risk, preservation matters: record the recruiter’s names and numbers, advertisements, travel itinerary, border crossings, passport copies, payments and last known location where it can be done safely. Immediate safety takes priority over gathering evidence. Families should use official police, Foreign Ministry, embassy and SLBFE channels and should treat anyone demanding an advance “rescue” or “release” fee with caution.

Unresolved questions

The public record still cannot answer several central questions:

• How many Sri Lankans were trafficked to Myawaddy across the entire period without double counting?
• Which compounds held each cohort, who controlled them, and which recruitment chains supplied workers?
• What individual screening standard was used to identify trafficking and coercion after return?
• Did the reported recruiter investigations produce charges, indictments or a final disposition?
• Were phones, accounts, platform records, wallet data or recruiter payments preserved and traced?
• What compensation, wage recovery, medical care and reintegration outcomes followed?
• How many people were re-trafficked or recruited after earlier warnings?

Those are not reasons to delay a public account. They define what the first edition can responsibly say and what later official records should update.

Conclusion

Myawaddy is not a story of Sri Lankans who simply travelled abroad to commit crypto fraud. The supported public account is more serious and more complex: people were recruited through purported employment, moved across borders and, according to Sri Lankan and international authorities, forced into cyber-scam work under coercive conditions. Several cohorts were released and repatriated through different routes between 2024 and 2025. Others were reported remaining while recruitment continued.

Sri Lanka’s diplomatic response brought people home. Its public justice record is much less complete. Reported recruiter arrests and remand have no located published disposition. Survivor assistance is not reported in a form that permits outcome assessment. The crypto connection is strong at the regional scam-system level but unproved for every Sri Lankan cohort.

A reliable case study must hold all three truths together: trafficked workers may be victims of forced criminality; people deceived online are also victims; and responsibility belongs only where evidence and lawful process place it.

Research, disclosures and corrections

This documentary case study uses public records and published reporting only. No original interviews were conducted and no private victim, wallet or court material was obtained. No subject was approached before this edition, so the article does not characterise silence as refusal. Relevant public explanations were included where located.

AI assistance supported source discovery, date comparison, claim classification and drafting. It was not used as evidence. Every material proposition was checked against the cited source, and editorial responsibility remains with the author.

This investigation received no external funding or material support. It is independent analysis and was not reviewed or endorsed by Cardiff Metropolitan University. It is not legal, financial, migration or recovery advice and does not determine civil or criminal liability.

Documentary corrections may be submitted through the website’s corrections channel. A correction should identify the passage, provide a direct source or authenticated record, and explain the requested change. Material corrections, official responses and later procedural developments will be recorded in the article’s update history.

References

Ada Derana (2023a) ‘Three suspects arrested over alleged trafficking to Myanmar cyber camps’, 23 December (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ada Derana (2023b) ‘CID launches two special investigations over Sri Lankans trafficked to Myanmar’, 25 December (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ada Derana (2024a) ‘Myanmar authorities rescue eight Sri Lankans from cybercrime camps’, 4 March (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ada Derana (2024b) ‘Eight Sri Lankans rescued from Myanmar cyber camps handed over to Thai authorities’, 11 April (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Daily Mirror (2024) ‘Crisis-Hit Sri Lankans End Up In Foreign Cyber Slavery’, 1 January (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Embassy and Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka in Bangkok (2025a) ‘15 Sri Lankans Rescued from Cybercrime Centres in Myawaddy, Myanmar to be Repatriated on 07 May 2025’, 6 May (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Embassy and Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka in Bangkok (2025b) ‘25 Sri Lankans Rescued from Cybercrime Centers in Myawaddy, Myanmar Repatriated on 16 December 2025’, 16 December (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

International Organization for Migration (2024a) ‘Eight Sri Lankan migrants trafficked to cyber scamming in Myanmar safely repatriated by the Government with the support of IOM’, 18 April (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

International Organization for Migration (2024b) ‘20 Sri Lankan migrants trafficked to Myanmar for cyber scamming repatriated with government and IOM support’, 6 September (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

International Organization for Migration (2024c) ‘Government and IOM successfully repatriate 27 Sri Lankan migrants trafficked to cyber-scamming compounds in Myanmar’, 17 December (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

International Organization for Migration (2025) ‘15 Sri Lankans trafficked to cyber-scamming compounds in Myanmar successfully repatriated through government and IOM efforts’, 8 May (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Defence (2024a) ‘Human Trafficking to Cybercrime Centres in Myanmar’, 1 August (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Defence (2024b) ‘NAHTTF warns public of human trafficking to cybercrime centres in Myanmar’, 19 September (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Defence (2024c) ‘Public warned of human trafficking to cybercrime centres via the UAE’, 11 November (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Defence (2025) ‘New wave of human trafficking to cybercrime centres in Myanmar’, 11 August (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Defence (2026a) ‘National Strategic Action Plan to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking 2026–2030 launched’, 28 January (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Defence (2026b) ‘Building a Stronger National Response: Parliament Briefed on Human Trafficking’, 26 June (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Defence (2026c) ‘Defence Secretary Calls for Stronger Collective Action to Combat Human Trafficking’, 30 July (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism (2025a) ‘Minister discusses rescue and safe repatriation of trafficked Sri Lankans with Myanmar’s Deputy Prime Minister’, 3 February (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism (2025b) ‘Minister discusses rescue of trafficked Sri Lankans with Thailand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs’, 13 February (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism (2025c) ‘Ambassador meets Myanmar ministers concerning released Sri Lankans’, 5 March (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism (2025d) ‘14 Sri Lankans rescued from cybercrime centres in Myawaddy, Myanmar’, 17 March (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2023) ‘Online Scam Operations and Trafficking into Forced Criminality in Southeast Asia: Recommendations for a Human Rights Response’, 28 August (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2026) ‘A “wicked problem”: Seeking human rights-based solutions to trafficking into cyber-scam operations in South-East Asia’, 20 February (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (2006) ‘Penal Code (Amendment) Act No. 16 of 2006’, certified 24 April and published as a supplement to Part II of the Gazette on 28 April (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2024) ‘Cyberfraud industry expands in Southeast Asia’, 7 October (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2026) ‘Forced to scam: Inside one of the fastest-growing forms of human trafficking’, 27 July (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

United States Department of the Treasury (2025) ‘Treasury Sanctions Burma Warlord and Militia Tied to Cyber Scam Operations’, 5 May (Accessed: 28 August 2026).