November 5, 2025
JAKARTA – As economic pressures mount and job opportunities remain scarce, more Indonesians are falling prey to online scams and human trafficking networks in Southeast Asia, a trend analysts warn will persist without a comprehensive approach and stern law enforcement.
The Indonesian Embassy in Yangon announced over the weekend that it had communicated with 148 victims of human trafficking stranded in Myanmar’s conflict-torn Myawaddy town, a hot spot for scam operations along the country’s border with Thailand.
The Indonesians were identified after the embassy received three separate reports involving hundreds of nationals across different locations in Myawaddy, including 58 reportedly located in the former KK Park complex, a notorious human trafficking hub cleared by Myanmar’s junta late last month.
Their identities were still being verified, with embassy staff coordinating with local authorities to move the victims to safe areas and facilitate exit permits for repatriation.
The announcement came just a week after the embassy handled another major case involving hundreds of foreign nationals, including 83 Indonesians, fleeing the KK Park complex. In less than 10 days, the Indonesian consulate said it had dealt with a total of 231 new trafficking cases.
Also on the weekend, Cambodian authorities arrested 106 Indonesians, including 36 women, on online scam charges following a reported raid in the Tuol Kork district of Phnom Penh.
Read also: South Korea summons Cambodian envoy over job scams targeting nationals
Five years since the crackdown on organized syndicates operating across Southeast Asia started, the practice of luring jobseekers with fake overseas offers and forcing them into criminal operations has remained rampant.
Interpol estimates the network now generates up to US$3 trillion a year, expanding operations beyond Southeast Asia into Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Largely run by Chinese-based criminal organizations, victims are forced to work long hours in captivity performing online scams, with some reportedly tortured and killed.
Economic root
The number of Indonesians caught up in such schemes has surged, with the Foreign Ministry recording a 250 percent increase in those involved in Cambodia’s cyber scam centers between 2023 and 2024.
In late October, the ministry revealed that 10,000 Indonesians had been ensnared in scam and trafficking networks since 2020, marking a grim milestone underscoring the widening reach of the criminal industry.
“Out of 10,000 Indonesian citizens in our records, only around 1,500 were identified as victims,” said the ministry’s then-citizen protection director Judha Nugara, as quoted by Antara.
He added that many had joined the scam operations voluntarily, lured by the promise of quick profits. Some were even repeat offenders, Judge went on to say, returning to the same work even after government-assisted repatriation.
The government has banned Indonesians from working abroad in several high-risk countries, but many remain driven to join because of economic pressures and scarce jobs at home, according to Gadjah Mada University (UGM) labor expert Tadjuddin Noer Effendi.
“The sheer difficulty of finding decent job opportunities at home makes people much more vulnerable to falling into these illegal schemes,” he said on Monday.
Read also: Crime syndicates may be setting up scam centre in Timor Leste, UN says
At least 7.2 million Indonesians were unemployed, according to data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) in May, most of whom were high school and university graduates.
With the domestic and global economic outlook still uncertain, Jakarta State University (UNJ) sociologist Rakhmat Hidayat warned that more Indonesians could be drawn into scam and trafficking schemes. Weak law enforcement, he added, has done little to stern the tide.
Several ASEAN countries have taken a stricter stance, such as Thailand, which prosecuted up to 70 percent of its returned trafficking victims in 2022, according to data from the United Nations. But there is little public data on Indonesia’s own prosecution rate.
Despite 85 percent of repatriated citizens being categorized as voluntary non-victims in scam networks, the Indonesian police only arrested one of 30 perpetrators in cases that involve hundreds of victims.
“We cannot just blame those who get tangled in this network,” Rakhmat said. “State intervention to break the cycle is necessary.”
Transnational crime such as online scams and human trafficking became one of the topics discussed by leaders and envoys attending the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur last week. Bloc members agreed to increase coordination to prevent such crimes from intensifying in the region, Foreign Minister Sugiono said after the summit.