Two Miles from a Scam Compound: Erin West’s Investigation in Myanmar

Erin West stands in Mae Sot, Thailand, looking across the border into Myanmar, where people are held inside scam compounds only a few miles away. The sites are difficult to reach from the Thai side of the border. Roads lead into isolated rural areas, checkpoints restrict movement, and the compounds themselves are hidden from view.

West, the founder of Operation Shamrock, is at the Thai-Myanmar border with her co-investigator Cezary Podkul. They are following reports of new scam compounds and trafficked workers appearing along the border, including a large compound north of Mae Sot where an estimated 5,000 people may be held.

Erin spent 26 years as a prosecutor before turning her attention to scam investigations, and now wants to see what has happened since earlier crackdowns on Myanmar’s scam compounds – and to find out where the people inside them have gone.

A billion-dollar business, hidden in the Myanmar jungle

Myanmar, along with Cambodia and Laos, is one of the centers of the global scam industry. According to the UN Human Rights Office, at least 120,000 people in Myanmar may be held and coerced into running scams, facing torture and forced labor. The compounds thrive in lawless border areas and loosely regulated special economic zones, often protected by armed groups, including Border Guard Forces allied with Myanmar’s military.

The profits of this industry are huge. The US Institute of Peace estimates that scam industries in Cambodia earn over $12.5 billion a year, with victims scattered worldwide: the UN puts average losses per victim at $160,000, while Americans alone lost about $10 billion in 2024.

China, where most of these networks originated, now leads the crackdown. In early 2026, it executed 15 members of the Ming and Bai crime families, which ran scam hubs in Myanmar’s Kokang region.

Across Myanmar, the compounds are becoming harder to find. Some are no longer large, visible sites that are easy to spot from the road. Instead, they are being built deeper inland, in remote areas where roads disappear into the jungle, and ordinary maps offer little help.

West first investigates the demolished KK Park and the emptied-out Tai Chang, both near Mae Sot. Then, she heads out to check the Apollo compound at the Skywalk lookout.

She has visited the same lookout twice in previous years. The first time, she thought the noise coming from the compound was gunfire – it turned out to be fireworks celebrating the compound's expansion. The second time, construction was underway. By the current visit, a 10-story building had gone up.

The compound is hidden behind barbed wire, and the team cannot see what is happening inside. But Erin says the sounds coming from inside are worrying.

We can hear screaming. We can hear a man aggressively speaking, yelling. And it gets louder and louder. And then you hear human screams. It’s terrifying.

She says she had previously been careful about how she described violence inside scam compounds. The accounts coming from victims have made that harder to soften: people report being beaten, punished, tortured, denied food and sleep, and forced to work.

Watch the full Myanmar trip. Erin West and Cezary Podkul filmed their investigation into the Myanmar compounds – from getting as close as they could to the compound near the Thai border to trying to help one of the victims get out.

Only two miles away

The northern compound is far more difficult to approach than KK Park, Tai Chang, and Apollo. West and her team drive for about an hour and a half from Mae Sot into a remote rural area. They pass three checkpoints where people ask for their passports and photograph their car, and eventually the road becomes so difficult that they have to turn around and find another route through the jungle

From the Thai side of the river, they can see the landscape where the compound is believed to be, about two miles inside Myanmar.

West says:

It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. And just two miles over, there are people being tortured on the daily.

After hitting a wall near Mae Sot, they decide to head to Three Pagodas Pass, on the border between Thailand and Myanmar, to try to reach the compound from that side. At the local market, shops line the Thai side. Walk through one, and you are suddenly in Myanmar. The team asks whether they can pass through… And only one shopkeeper eventually lets them.

They walk through the shop and into Myanmar, staying there for about 30 seconds before they’re forced back.

It’s a weird feeling… It’s tense. It’s uncomfortable.

The physical distance between Thailand and the people trapped inside Myanmar can be almost nothing. The practical distance is much greater.

One man inside the northern compound

Most of what the investigators know about the northern compound comes from one man held inside it, whose anonymity is kept for his safety. When the investigation was filmed, he was still inside.

The victim had been held there for four months. He told the team he was pushed to work up to 18 hours a day with little food, almost no sleep, and no pay, and was punished with forced exercise in the heat. He wanted to go home, and he sent the team what he could: messages, videos, and the location of a compound that doesn’t appear on a regular map.

Getting him out depended on slow, official processes. He could write to his embassy, which might then pass the request on to the armed group controlling the area. If the request went through, the compound boss would be told the worker was going to be collected. That notice would force the boss to let him go – but it would also tell the boss exactly who had asked to leave. Workers can be beaten or locked up in the days before their release.

When the victim asked what his chances were, they didn’t sugarcoat it:

The chances are 50-50. Maybe yes, maybe no. But I’m willing to try.

In the end, he didn’t wait for the letters. He managed to escape the compound on his own and reached the river, but the water was too high to cross. He asked a villager for help, only to be handed back to the compound. He spent 10 days in solitary confinement, without light and with one meal a day, and was released only after paying two ransoms. He is now in Thailand, with people helping him get home.

West recounts:

I’m so glad this case had a positive ending. But I have to tell you, it’s rare that someone gets released under these circumstances.

Most people held in the compounds along this border are still inside, a few miles from Thailand, and effectively out of reach. For the people trapped there, the border and the concrete walls of the compounds offer little hope of getting out. That, West says, is why the story has to keep being told.

This is Erin West’s third investigation in an ongoing series with Sumsub. Previously, she traveled to Cambodia to investigate the vast scam compounds located there and to Nigeria to track down scammers who blackmail minors online.

You can find out more in our two previous articles: They Don’t Shut Down, They Move: Inside Cambodia’s Scam Cities and On the Hunt for the Men Blackmailing Minors Online.