Interpol has raised concern over the expansion of human trafficking-fueled scam centres, identifying West Africa as a potential emerging hub in a crime trend that has spread far beyond its original base in Southeast Asia.
According to Interpol’s latest global crime trend update, victims from at least 66 countries had been trafficked into online scam centres by March 2025. The report highlights the growing global reach of these criminal operations, noting that no continent has been left untouched.
The analysis, based on Interpol notices issued over the past five years, shows that 74 percent of known trafficking victims were taken to scam centres in Southeast Asia.
However, there has been a steady rise in similar centres being observed in regions such as the Middle East, Central America, and particularly West Africa, which appears to be developing into a new regional base for such crimes.
Interpol’s data reveals that 90 percent of individuals involved in trafficking facilitation were from Asia, with 11 percent originating from Africa or South America. Most of these facilitators were men, and a majority were between the ages of 20 and 39.
Initially concentrated in a few countries in Southeast Asia, the scam centres are believed to have detained hundreds of thousands of victims. Many were lured by fake job advertisements and subsequently forced to work in guarded compounds, where they carried out online scams under coercion.
Victims often faced severe abuse, including physical violence, sexual exploitation, and torture. Meanwhile, the scams themselves targeted unsuspecting individuals around the world, causing significant financial and psychological harm.
While not every person operating within a scam centre is a victim of trafficking, Interpol noted that many are held under conditions of debt bondage or threats, often stripped of personal documents and freedom of movement.
Since 2023, Interpol has classified this growing phenomenon as a global crisis, issuing an Orange Notice to warn of its imminent threat to public safety. In 2024, an international operation coordinated by Interpol uncovered multiple cases where trafficking victims were forced to engage in fraud.
Among the high-profile raids was one in the Philippines, which exposed an industrial-scale operation. Another intervention in Namibia led to the dismantling of a scam centre where 88 young people were being exploited.
Interpol also warned of the increasing role of technology in facilitating these scams. Artificial intelligence is being used to create realistic fake job adverts, generate deepfake images and profiles, and develop more convincing social engineering schemes, including sextortion and romance scams.
The report further noted that the trafficking routes used to move victims are also being exploited to smuggle drugs, firearms, and endangered wildlife, particularly in regions where environmental crime is already prominent.
Interpol’s Acting Executive Director of Police Services, Cyril Gout, said the scale and evolution of online scam centres now represent a persistent global challenge.
He called for stronger collaboration across international law enforcement, civil society organisations, and technology companies in order to disrupt these networks and support victims.
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