She did her research. She found the job listing on social media, looked up the company, called the phone number on the website to confirm it was real, and then accepted what appeared to be a legitimate customer service position abroad. When she arrived, her passport was taken. Her phone was confiscated. And she was told she owed a debt for the cost of her own travel.
Today, Thursday, July 30, is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons — and this year the United Nations has chosen a theme that captures a growing, largely invisible crisis: “Trapped Behind the Scam.” It’s a phrase that points directly to one of the fastest-growing forms of human trafficking in the world: scam compounds, where trafficked people are forced to carry out online fraud against victims around the globe.
James Foster, director of U.S. Government Affairs for International Justice Mission, says the story above has become a common pattern.
“Traffickers go to great lengths to make fraudulent opportunities appear legitimate,” Foster said. “Creating professional websites, listing working phone numbers, conducting multiple rounds of interviews, and even arranging travel. This isn’t about people being careless — it’s about organized crime becoming increasingly sophisticated.”
Technology has always shaped how criminals operate, but the scale and speed of what’s happening now marks something different. Criminal networks are recruiting victims through fake job offers on social media and messaging apps, moving them across borders, and trapping them inside heavily guarded compounds — not to perform physical labor, but to sit at computers and run online scams: romance fraud, investment schemes, crypto manipulation. The victims are often educated, multilingual young adults with the exact skills organized crime needs to be convincing online.
“Human trafficking has always been driven by criminals exploiting people for profit,” Foster said, “but technology has changed the scale, speed and reach of that exploitation.”
Once inside a compound, the process of control is systematic. Documents are confiscated. Movement is restricted. Quotas are set. Beatings, starvation and other forms of abuse are used against anyone who refuses or fails to perform. Victims are also told they owe a debt — for their flight, their visa, their accommodations — a debt that functions as a financial trap with no clear bottom. Some are eventually released when families pay ransoms. Others are freed in law enforcement operations. A rare few escape on their own. Many remain for months or years.
What makes forced scamming particularly insidious is how it turns victims into perpetrators. People who have been trafficked are coerced into deceiving others online — as a condition of their own survival. Foster describes it as a cycle that allows criminal networks to profit twice: first by exploiting the people they’ve trafficked, and then by using those victims as instruments to steal from people around the world.
Organized crime networks are integrating technology into these operations with the same efficiency mindset as a legitimate business. They use encrypted platforms to communicate internally, social media to recruit victims, and increasingly, artificial intelligence to scale and sharpen their scams. AI can generate fluent messages in multiple languages, tailor pitches to a target’s interests, clone voices, produce deepfake videos, automate conversations, and fabricate entire identities — complete with profile photos.
“AI is lowering the barrier for criminals to create more convincing and personalized scams at a much greater scale,” Foster said. “While AI is not creating human trafficking, it is giving traffickers and organized crime networks additional tools to make exploitation more efficient, scalable and harder to detect.”
The gap between how fast criminal networks are adapting and how fast the systems designed to stop them are responding is one of the most urgent problems Foster sees.
“Technology itself is not the problem,” he said. “The challenge is that criminal networks are adapting faster than many systems designed to stop them.”
For everyday people trying to navigate an increasingly online job market, the warning signs are real but easy to miss. Job offers that promise unusually high pay for vague roles. Opportunities that require international travel with unclear details. Employers who insist on communicating only through encrypted messaging apps. Pressure to decide quickly, hand over personal documents, or send money upfront. But Foster is careful not to reduce this to a checklist. The people being recruited aren’t naive — they’re being targeted.
Gen Z adults, many of whom entered the workforce during or after the pandemic and are accustomed to finding remote work online, are a particular target demographic. Traffickers seek out people who are digitally fluent, multilingual and looking for economic opportunity.
“Traffickers exploit people’s hopes for a better future,” Foster said, “and turn those aspirations into a pathway for exploitation.”
His advice for anyone evaluating an online opportunity isn’t to avoid digital work altogether — it’s to approach it with the same scrutiny you’d apply to any major decision. Ask questions. Verify through trusted sources. Talk to people in your network.
“Remote work and online opportunities are a normal and valuable part of today’s workforce,” he said. “The goal isn’t to create fear around online work — it’s to make sure people have the tools and awareness to pursue opportunities safely.”
Stopping this will require coordination at a scale that doesn’t yet exist. Foster is direct about that: no single government, company or nonprofit can do it alone. Forced scamming sits at the intersection of human trafficking, cyber-enabled fraud and transnational organized crime, which means the response has to match that complexity. Governments need stronger laws and cross-border cooperation. Technology companies need to build safer platforms, detect criminal activity and share intelligence.
Organizations around the world work to identify victims, support survivors and strengthen justice systems — but they’re operating within a web of crime that has already integrated trafficking, technology and financial fraud into a single, highly organized business model.
“Criminal networks have already integrated technology, trafficking and financial crime into one business model,” Foster said. “And the response must be just as connected.”
The Church has a role here too, Foster says — not as a megaphone for fear, but as a community equipped to recognize exploitation and respond with care. That means creating informed congregations, supporting organizations on the front lines, advocating for policies that protect vulnerable people, and building spaces where survivors are welcomed without shame or spectacle.
The internet didn’t create human trafficking. It just gave the people who profit from it more reach, more cover and more victims. The woman who called the phone number, verified the company, did everything right — she’s still waiting for the systems meant to protect her to catch up to the ones that found her first.
