He Scammed People for Their Money. He Was Also a Victim.

A Ugandan man named Jalil Muyeke traveled to Thailand for a promising job opportunity. He ended up being trafficked into a cybercrime operation.

Internet scammers steal billions from Americans each year. In one workroom in Southeast Asia, where dozens of fraudsters trolled dating apps for fresh victims, they would beat a giant drum and chant each time they successfully duped someone into sending them money.

“It was a whole celebration,” said Jalil Muyeke, a 32-year-old from Uganda who witnessed the festivities from inside a compound in Myanmar.

Mr. Muyeke was also a victim. But the masterminds behind these schemes didn’t drain his bank account. Instead, he said, they stole seven months of his life, forcing him to work on their scams.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been lured into scamming operations. In Mr. Muyeke’s case, he was ensnared through a promising job opportunity. After a harrowing journey spanning thousands of miles, he was trapped inside one of the hundreds of compounds in Southeast Asia, often controlled by Chinese organized crime rings and set up for industrial-scale scamming.

These fraud farms — some of which are repurposed casinos that were shuttered during pandemic lockdowns — are often staffed with trafficked workers laboring under the threat of severe beatings, electric shock or worse.