CSEC 301: The Global Scam Economy

This is the course that most distinguishes the CM-Tech program from every other cybersecurity curriculum in existence. Rather than treating cybercrime as a purely technical phenomenon, we examine it as an industry—one with supply chains, labor forces, profit margins, and geopolitical roots.

Romance Scams and Their Evolution into “Pig Butchering”

The course traces the evolution of online fraud from relatively simple romance scams—in which a scammer builds a fake romantic relationship to extract money—to the far more sophisticated and devastating “pig butchering” schemes. The term, which translates from the Chinese phrase shā zhū pán, refers to the practice of “fattening up” a victim (the “pig”) with trust and apparent financial gains before “slaughtering” them by stealing everything. Scammers cultivate elaborate relationships with victims over weeks or months—sometimes posing as romantic interests, sometimes as investment mentors—before persuading them to deposit money into fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platforms.

According to the United States Institute of Peace, pig butchering scams generated an estimated $63.9 billion in global revenue in 2023. The U.S. Treasury Department estimates that Americans alone lost at least $10 billion to Southeast Asia-based scam operations in 2024, a 66% increase over the prior year. These are not petty crimes. This is an industry operating at a scale that rivals legitimate economic sectors.

The Scam Compounds of Southeast Asia

Burma, Cambodia, and Laos are the current epicenter of global scam operations. Scam centers in these three countries produced approximately $43.8 billion in revenue in 2023, equivalent to roughly 40% of their combined official gross domestic product. The operations are concentrated in sprawling compounds—sometimes converted casinos or hotel complexes—that can house thousands of workers.

The Workers: Victims, Not Villains

This is where cultural competence becomes essential. A 2025 Amnesty International investigation found that the vast majority of workers in Cambodian scam compounds were themselves victims of human trafficking. They had been lured by deceptive job advertisements posted on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, promised legitimate employment in customer service or technology. Upon arrival, their passports were confiscated. They were held behind walls topped with barbed wire, guarded by armed security, and forced to conduct scams under threat of severe violence.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that workers are now recruited from at least 56 countries—from Indonesia to Liberia. Some were beaten or tortured for failing to meet fraud quotas. Others were subjected to electric shocks. There have been reports of workers jumping to their deaths to escape. The cruelty is twofold: the scammers who contact you may themselves be prisoners.

Important caveat: This empathetic framing applies specifically to workers who participate in scams due to poverty, coercion, or the absence of any better employment opportunity. There is an entirely separate category of actors—including the organizers, financiers, and political enablers of these operations—who bear the overwhelming moral responsibility. The rank and file deserve compassion; the people at the top, living lavishly off stolen money, not so much.

Government Complicity

Credible investigations by Amnesty International, the U.S. Treasury Department, ProPublica, and the U.S. Congress have documented evidence suggesting that elements of certain governments in Southeast Asia have been complicit in—or at minimum have failed to meaningfully address—scam compound operations. In Cambodia, for example, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Ly Yong Phat, a Cambodian senator and advisor to the Prime Minister, in 2024 for his role in serious human rights abuses connected to scam compounds he owned. In 2025, the founder of the Prince Group conglomerate, Chen Zhi, was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for operating forced-labor scam compounds that stole billions of dollars.

A U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report described these operations as “joint ventures between Chinese criminal organizations and autocratic governments” in countries where “transparency is absent and rule of law is anemic.” Police raids on compounds frequently resulted in workers being relocated rather than freed. More than two-thirds of the scam compounds identified in Amnesty International’s investigation continued to operate even after police “rescues.”

Understanding the Root Causes: Cambodia as a Case Study

To understand why Cambodia has become an epicenter of the global scam economy, it is necessary to understand Cambodia’s history. This is not about demonizing a nation or its people. It is about recognizing the cascading consequences of conflict.

U.S. Bombing and Unexploded Ordnance (UXO). Between 1969 and 1973, the US military dropped approximately 2.7 million tons of ordnance on Cambodia, including 80,000 cluster bombs containing roughly 26 million submunitions. Up to 25% of these munitions failed to detonate. Today, with an estimated four to six million items of unexploded ordnance still in the ground, Cambodia remains one of the most UXO-contaminated countries on Earth. As of 2019, 20% of all villages in Cambodia were still contaminated. Farmers avoid fertile land for fear of triggering hidden bombs. More than 64,000 Cambodians have been killed or injured by landmines and UXO since 1979, producing one of the highest amputee rates in the world.

Agent Orange and Toxic Contamination. During Operation Ranch Hand (1962–1971), the US military sprayed approximately 20 million gallons of herbicides—including Agent Orange—over Vietnam, eastern Laos, and parts of Cambodia. Agent Orange contained dioxin (TCDD), which was later learned to be a potent carcinogen linked to cancers, birth defects, diabetes, and immune system disorders. The environmental contamination persists for decades. The Vietnamese Red Cross estimates three million people have been affected, including at least 150,000 children born with serious birth defects.

The Lawsuits. In 1979, U.S. Vietnam War veterans filed a class-action lawsuit against the chemical companies that manufactured Agent Orange, including Dow Chemical and Monsanto. In 1984, the case was settled out of court for $180 million—at the time, the largest product-liability settlement in history. The companies denied liability. The fund distributed approximately $197 million total through 1994 before closing. Separately, in 2004, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange filed a class action in New York on behalf of Vietnamese citizens. In 2005, Judge Jack B. Weinstein—the same judge who presided over the veterans’ case—dismissed the lawsuit. The Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, ruling that the herbicides were not intended as weapons against humans and therefore did not violate international law. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2009. The Vietnamese victims—people whose land was poisoned, whose children were born with deformities—received nothing.

The PACT Act. On August 10, 2022, President Biden signed the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act into law—described as the largest expansion of VA health care and benefits in decades. The PACT Act added over 20 new presumptive conditions for burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic exposures, and expanded presumptive-exposure locations to include military bases in Thailand, locations in Cambodia, Laos, Guam, and American Samoa. This legislation was a landmark achievement for American veterans, though it does not extend to the local populations affected by the same chemicals.

The Khmer Rouge. From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot conducted a genocide that killed an estimated 1.7 to 2 million Cambodians—roughly a quarter of the country’s population. Intellectuals, professionals, ethnic minorities, and anyone perceived as a threat were systematically exterminated. The country’s elderly population was particularly devastated, as entire generations were lost to the genocide or died prematurely from the toxic and dangerous aftermath of conflict.

When we put these facts together, a picture emerges. Cambodia is a country where the soil is poisoned, the land is mined, a generation was murdered, justice was sought in international courts and denied, and economic opportunity remains scarce. It is not surprising that criminal enterprises have taken root in such conditions. Some of those at the top of these operations may even frame their activities as a perverse form of reparations—extracting wealth from the countries whose actions contributed to Cambodia’s devastation. This framing does not make the scams acceptable. But understanding the context is essential to developing effective, humane responses.

The irony is sharp: the elderly are among the most frequently targeted victims of these scams, yet Cambodia’s own elderly population has been decimated by decades of violence and its aftermath.