When Abdullah Molla left Bangladesh for Cambodia in November 2025, he believed he was taking a legitimate office job that would secure a better future.
Instead, he says, he was trafficked into an online scam compound, left undocumented, extorted for money and stranded for months before his family borrowed heavily to bring him home.
Abdullah’s experience is not an isolated incident. According to the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment, more than 300 Bangladeshis have been repatriated from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries in recent years after being rescued from cyber scam compounds.
The growing number of returnees has exposed an emerging trafficking route in which Bangladeshi jobseekers are lured abroad with promises of well-paid office jobs before being forced into organized cybercrime.
“I had already spent around Tk560,000 to get there. Then they demanded another $2,000 to arrange my visa so I could return to Bangladesh. I was sold there for $2,000,” the 30-year-old from Gopalganj told Dhaka Tribune.
Another Bangladeshi returnee, Shafiqul Islam Hridoy, recounted a remarkably similar experience.
Promised a data-entry job with a monthly salary of $800, he says he was instead sold into a cyber scam centre.
After refusing to participate in online fraud, Hridoy said he was locked in a dark room for 17 days and tortured.
“They beat me and gave me electric shocks during the first three days,” he said.
Their accounts illustrate a rapidly expanding form of human trafficking in Southeast Asia, where migrants are deceived with fake overseas job offers and forced to participate in online scams.
The pattern shows how promises of employment can quickly turn into coercion and exploitation.
The UN Human Rights Office describes the phenomenon as “trafficking in persons for forced criminality,” warning that victims are compelled to commit cybercrime through threats, violence and coercion.
“Human trafficking for the purpose of compelling individuals to participate in online scams poses significant challenges to prevention, victim identification and protection,” Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office, told Dhaka Tribune.
From jobseekers to trafficking victims
Abdullah said he travelled to Cambodia through a Bangladeshi broker after paying around Tk560,000.
Upon arrival, he was taken to what he believed was an office, where he was told he would need to pay another $2,000 to obtain legal documents. Otherwise, he would have to work in an online scam operation, where he was instructed to lure young men by posing as an attractive young woman online.
After refusing to pay, he and dozens of others were left stranded when Cambodian authorities launched operations against the scam compound.
When they demanded their money back, the broker disappeared, leaving them with only their passports.
Without valid documents, Abdullah spent nearly two months hiding in hotels in Phnom Penh, paying around $10 a night to avoid police raids targeting undocumented migrants.
His family later borrowed another Tk200,000 to finance his return home through Thailand.
In total, Abdullah spent about eight months in Cambodia but worked for less than two months.
Hridoy’s journey followed a similar pattern.
He said a broker promised him a job as a computer operator before arranging his travel through Thailand to Cambodia.
“There wasn’t even an interview,” he recalled.
“I realized only after arriving that it was a scam centre. Citizens of Pakistan, China and Cambodia were working there together,” Hridoy, from Mirpur in Dhaka, told this newspaper.
According to Hridoy, workers were divided into teams responsible for targeting victims in different countries and persuading them to disclose financial information.
When he refused to participate, he said he was detained for more than two weeks.
Before his detention, Hridoy managed to share his live location with his wife.
His younger brother later contacted members of the Bangladeshi community in Cambodia, who helped trace his whereabouts.
His family eventually paid about $2,900 to secure his release.
Altogether, he estimates the ordeal cost his family nearly Tk900,000.
A new face of human trafficking
The survivors’ experiences closely mirror findings published this year by the UN Human Rights Office.
Their accounts reinforce how recruitment into cyber scam compounds often resembles legitimate overseas labour migration, making trafficking more difficult to detect.
According to the agency, recruitment into cyber scam compounds frequently mirrors legitimate labour migration, making it difficult for jobseekers to distinguish genuine employment opportunities from trafficking schemes.
“Most survivors were under severe socio-economic pressures, and more than half were unemployed or underemployed at the time of recruitment,” Hurtado said.
The UN also found that nearly three-quarters of victims were recruited through people they personally knew, including relatives, friends, neighbours or community members, rather than through anonymous online advertisements alone.
One Bangladeshi survivor interviewed by the UN said: “I thought I was being offered a work opportunity that was normal for young people seeking to migrate and earn money abroad.”
According to the UN Human Rights Office, more than 70% of identified online scam compounds remain concentrated across the Mekong region, particularly in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos.
The agency warned that victims forced into cybercrime are frequently misidentified as criminals rather than trafficking survivors.
Justice remains elusive
Both Bangladeshi survivors identified local brokers whom they accuse of recruiting them under false pretences.
One alleges that the recruiter operated a travel agency in Dhaka, while the other says he still possesses bank transaction records linked to his broker.
Yet neither has filed a criminal case.
“We don’t have the money to pursue legal action,” Abdullah said.
Both men said they have sought assistance from BRAC Migration Service Centers and hope to receive legal support.
According to Rafiqul Islam Khan, a policy and legal support specialist, Bangladesh’s justice system remains poorly equipped to protect trafficking survivors.
That gap helps explain why justice remains elusive.
“There is no effective victim support framework,” he said.
“Many trafficking cases collapse because witnesses cannot be protected or are persuaded to settle outside court.”
He said Bangladesh still lacks a dedicated witness protection law, discouraging survivors from testifying and weakening prosecutions against traffickers.
Government acknowledges emerging threat
State Minister for Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Nurul Haque Nur described cyber scam trafficking as a relatively new challenge for Bangladesh.
“This is a new problem for us. Many Bangladeshis are being lured by online scam networks and travelling to Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos,” he told Dhaka Tribune.
The minister said authorities have increased scrutiny of outbound travellers after discovering that many victims unknowingly leave Bangladesh on short-term tourist visas while brokers falsely promise long-term work permits.
“Many of them are unaware that they have only one- or two-month tourist visas, while brokers tell them they have two-year work visas,” he said.
He acknowledged, however, that immigration authorities face limitations in detecting every instance of fraud at airports.
The ministry is also working with the Home Ministry to strengthen immigration screening and prevent travellers from leaving the country using fraudulent or misleading visa documents.
“If we work in a coordinated manner, I believe we can solve this emerging crisis,” he added.
UN urges coordinated regional response
Hurtado said dismantling cyber-trafficking networks requires much more than police raids because criminal groups exploit weaknesses in labour migration systems across the region.
“Fraudulent recruitment is not just an issue related to digital platforms,” she said.
Hurtado urged governments to strengthen oversight of labour migration intermediaries, improve regulation of online recruitment platforms and increase transparency in overseas job advertisements.
“Awareness-raising efforts should move beyond generic messaging and instead target specific at-risk groups through trusted messengers,” Hurtado said.
She stressed that survivors should be actively involved in designing prevention campaigns and that awareness efforts should be linked to local support services.
She also called for greater investment in digital literacy and technology-based tools to help jobseekers identify fraudulent recruitment schemes before travelling abroad.
Given the cross-border nature of the crime, Hurtado said governments should strengthen cooperation among embassies, law enforcement agencies and civil society organizations to locate victims and facilitate their rescue.