The disappearance of a young man is always a tragedy. But when it occurs amid whispers of human trafficking, torture, and even organ harvesting, it becomes something far darker. My friend, a mother in China, called me to say that her youngest son had not been heard of for three months. Naturally, she was worried sick, but her fears were made much worse when someone said that he might have fallen into the clutches of one of the evil sprawling scam compounds of Myanmar. She had not previously heard of these sinister places, and unsurprisingly what she was told caused her grievous alarm. She called to ask if I knew whether they were real or not.
I had seen a little on Youtube, but didn’t know much, so I did some research and unfortunately had to tell her that, not only were they real but possibly even worse than she had heard. Fortunately, her son came home about ten days afterwards unharmed. Her relief was immense. While my friend’s story ended happily, for the tens of thousands lured into that lawless stretch of Southeast Asia known as "the Silicon Triangle", where cyber fraud, human trafficking, and organised crime converge, the end is rarely a happy one.
In recent years, Myanmar’s borderlands have become synonymous with brutal modern slavery. The victims are from all over the world, Chinese, Asians, Africans and Westerners duped by online scams and then forced to perpetrate the scams themselves, often under the most grotesque conditions imaginable. Among the bleakest allegations concerning their treatment is the harvesting of human organs.
Taking the most famous of these concentration camps, KK Park, as an example, it is a heavily fortified scam compound located in Myawaddy Township on Myanmar’s border with Thailand. Built between 2019 and 2021, it resembles a private fortress, complete with dormitories, offices, telecom towers and makeshift medical ‘clinics’, all guarded by watchtowers and formidable barbed wire fencing, patrolled by heavily armed guards of the Border Guard Force (BGF), a former rebel group loosely allied with Myanmar’s junta, which controls territories and provides protection and trafficking logistics.
Inside these slave camps is a grim reality of thousands of trafficked individuals held captive and forced to operate online scams, targeting victims worldwide. Satellite imagery reveals the rapid expansion of KK Park, much like a tumour metastasising across the jungle. Guarded by private militias and operated by Chinese criminal syndicates, it is part of a broader criminal infrastructure that has turned parts of Myanmar into a dystopian free-for-all. It is estimated that well over 100,000 people have been enslaved in these compounds across Southeast Asia, with Myanmar emerging as a major hub with some estimates putting the number of enslaved captives in that country alone at over 120,000.
Victims are lured with promises of legitimate work only to find themselves trapped, tortured, and forced to perpetrate romance scams, cryptocurrency fraud, and other cybercrimes. Those who resist are beaten, starved, electrocuted, or worse. First-hand accounts describe horrific torture: beatings, prolonged hunger, electric shocks, sexual abuse, forced prostitution, and executions. One survivor reported that “We worked 17 hours a day… if we say we want to leave, they tell us that they will sell us or kill us.” One survivor, a Pakistani man, recalled being chained to a pole, beaten, and sold for $10,000 to another camp
Other survivors speak of 'disciplinary rooms', where the disobedient are subjected to appalling violence. While some are sold from one compound to another, like cattle, others simply vanish. The descriptions are reminiscent of war crimes, not corporate misconduct, with weekly murders for even minor disobedience, carried out in front of witnesses to install total fear in those enslaved. The Guardian reported that Chinese guards oversee torture inside the compounds.
Among the catalogue of violence and abuse, perhaps none is as chilling as the reports of forced organ harvesting. While hard evidence remains scarce, there is enough smoke to warrant serious concern. In one case, a 22-year-old Kenyan woman, Grace Mata, died inside KK Park. Investigators from the Kenyan embassy suspect her kidney was removed prior to her death, an allegation that, if proven, confirms the worst fears about these compounds' medical facilities. Amnesty International and human rights groups have flagged the emergence of makeshift clinics inside scam compounds as deeply suspicious.
Myanmar has a well-documented underground illicit organ trade, especially in human kidneys. Traffickers exploit Myanmar’s porous borders, rife with corruption and weak governance, with China, Thailand, and India. Illicit brokers, rogue medical professionals, and corrupt officials have facilitated organ removal operations and there are rumours in China that high Party officials have benefited from it.
At the heart of KK Park’s operations lie Chinese criminal networks, with deep links to triad groups, crypto laundering, and, it seems, political influence. Chief among them is, allegedly, Wan Kuok Koi, known as "Broken Tooth", a notorious Macau triad boss turned businessman. He leads the World Hongmen History and Culture Association, which promotes China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). His organisation cloaks itself in patriotic rhetoric and cultural promotion, while being sanctioned by Western governments for its ties to organised crime and scam operations across Southeast Asia. The same network funnels scammed funds back to Chinese businessmen in Bangkok.
Alongside these triads operate local militias such as the BGF, nominally aligned with Myanmar's junta but in practice operating as armed mercenaries. These groups provide protection for compounds like KK Park, enabling trafficking and fraud to flourish under their watchful eye.
Beijing’s role in this sordid affair remains ambiguous. On the one hand, Chinese authorities have publicly denounced scam compounds and, under considerable diplomatic pressure, repatriated thousands of Chinese victims from Myanmar. High-profile cases involving celebrities trapped in KK Park have forced the issue onto the national agenda. China has repatriated over 600 nationals and detained 53,000 suspected scammers within China proper. Of the 7,000 people rescued so far, Chinese nationals make up over half.
Yet troubling reports suggest Chinese business figures, state-owned enterprises, and even Party-linked organisations have, wittingly or otherwise, facilitated the rise of these scam hubs. Some Chinese chambers of commerce and infrastructure projects tied to the Belt and Road Initiative have been accused of providing cover for criminal enterprises operating along the border. KK Park's strategic location places it squarely within the geography of China's BRI, the vast, state-backed project intended to weave new trade routes across Asia and beyond. On paper, the BRI is about connectivity, commerce, and economic development. But in Myanmar it has provided the infrastructure, and in some cases, the political legitimacy, that criminals have exploited to their advantage. Roads, ports, and special economic zones have been co-opted by traffickers, turning grand geopolitical ambitions into a cover for cybercrime and human misery. In some cases, BRI-linked projects and scam compounds operate side by side, their boundaries blurred both physically and politically. Radio Free Asia interviews with local Chinese residents and businessmen suggest that state-owned Chinese enterprises and chambers of commerce are instrumental in establishing those compounds. These statements allege that such leaders have affiliations with the CCP’s United Front Work Department, implying implicit approval or facilitation by Chinese officials.
China’s People's Ministry of Public Security has initiated massive joint operations, yet its officials always emphasise that the victims might have gone voluntarily despite coercion behind the scenes. The Chinese government has ceased funding projects tied to scam compounds and pushed Myanmar militias to act, but its initial distance from the issue, rumoured to be due to covert party involvement in the organ trade, raises concerns to say the least. And the failure to formally disavow KK Park publicly implies either ignorance, denial, or the latent influence of criminal actors leveraging the BRI to mask illicit operations. Or official involvement.
Up to now, international efforts to dismantle these operations have had mixed results. Thai, Chinese, and Myanmar authorities have conducted sporadic raids, rescuing thousands of victims. But many more remain trapped. Diplomatic efforts are hampered by fragmented jurisdictions, militia control, and, in some cases, deliberate obfuscation by those with vested interests. Victims from dozens of countries, China, Thailand, Kenya, the Philippines, even Britain, remain stranded, exploited, or missing altogether.
This is not merely a geopolitical scandal, it is a human tragedy. My friend's son turned out to be safe, but thousands of other mother’s sons and daughters are not, trapped in these inhuman slave camps or sold or killed, murdered for their organs. And yet there is little official interest in the international organisations, or by governments worldwide. Why?
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