A new study from International Justice Mission (IJM), one of the world’s largest anti-slavery organizations, has linked a wave of global child sextortion cases to scamming compounds in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos.
The study said nearly 500 cases logged over two years by the U.S.-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) involved sexual images of minors being obtained and then used for extortion, with ties to scam operations in the region.
It added that another 18,017 child exploitation reports contained IP addresses traced to known Southeast Asian scam sites, including 27 in Cambodia.
“This research indicates a likely convergence of two dark forms of exploitation – child sextortion and human trafficking – enabled by digital platforms and driven by profit,” said Eric Heintz, Senior Criminal Analyst at IJM in a press release, referring to the estimated hundreds of thousands of coerced and forced laborers the scam industry exploits into forced criminality.
“Our research provides the first clear evidence of this likely link but to understand the true scale of the problem, there needs to be further urgent investigation into this troubling nexus by law enforcement, tech companies and global governments.”
IJM’s research comes as global sextortion cases have exploded in the past few years, with criminals increasingly targeting children or inadvertently doing so when minors use adult devices. Dozens of teenage boys in the U.S. and across the world have reportedly taken their own lives as a result, with many of the online extortion cases against children previously linked to scammers and fraudsters in West Africa.
The IJM study, backed by child-safety group Safe Online and the Thomson Reuters Social Impact Institute, examined more than 1.1 million online enticement cases – covering 3.1 million IP addresses – reported by U.S. tech firms to NCMEC between January 2022 and August 2024. Under U.S. law, tech companies must flag suspected child exploitation to NCMEC’s CyberTipline.
Researchers matched those reports against IP addresses tied to 27 reported scam compounds in Cambodia, 16 in Myanmar and one in Laos. They found 18,017 reports linked to those sites. To tighten the connection, IJM also analyzed mobile advertising data bought from brokers and mapped it against NCMEC’s records. The result: at least 493 cases were “likely” run directly out of scam centers, the report said.
“This is likely just the tip of the iceberg which is why we urgently need more data sharing, better detection tools, and stronger international cooperation to uncover the full extent of this potential crisis,” said Heintz.
IJM said CyberTipline reports were linked to devices near known scam hubs, including 151 in Bavet City, 71 in Sihanoukville, 52 in Poipet and more than a dozen spread across Chrey Thom, the Bokor Mountain compound, Long Bay and the MDS Henghe Thmorda special economic zone.
In Myanmar, 230 devices connected to the country’s infamous KK Park and Shwe Kokko compounds were flagged.
Choun Bun Eng, permanent vice chair of the National Committee to Counter Trafficking, whose division has faced criticism for lapses in screening detainees for trafficking during occasional raids of alleged scam sites and has previously been flagged for potential sanctions by a U.S. transnational crime expert, called the IJM report “baseless.”
“They [IJM] should cooperate with the anti-cyber crime department. If they just release a report and no one knows the details, which locations?,” she said dismissively.
Multiple reports from international rights groups, watchdogs and investigators have identified dozens – and in some cases hundreds – of suspected scam compounds using forced labor, with Amnesty International criticizing the Cambodian government for “complicity” in the illicit industry.
Sok Nithya, director of the National Police’s Anti-Cyber Crime Department, referred inquiries to Sok Sambou, director of the Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department, who could not be reached for comment.
Spokespeople for the National Police, Chhay Kim Khoeun, and the Interior Ministry, Touch Sokha, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
