Global media and law enforcement are starting to realize a new trend in transnational crime: the proliferation of criminally run “crime zones” which exploit human trafficking.

Media reports are constantly uncovering the emergence of criminal activity in remote areas such as those in lawless countries.

These lawless countries often have high levels of corruption in government, military, legal systems, and law enforcement. Making the criminal activity lucrative to reaps profits from international scams.

Lawless enclaves have also emerged in every continent on the planet from Asia to Africa to South America.

Crime networks around the world have lured millions of estimated people into slave-like conditions beyond the reach of law enforcement.

In Myanmar, Afghanistan, Cambodia, or Venezuela the percentage of humans trafficked into some form of “slavery” could be two to three times higher than other countries.

Most people are enticed through social media advertisements promising lucrative office jobs in various countries.

Once the accept the “job offer” the victims are then transported from one location to another until they are finally trafficked into the crime city.

Growth of Organized Crime

Two related trends are behind the rise of this new form of violent crime, corruption and control.

First, in the years before the pandemic, corrupt governing officials in many of the lawless countries ignore and sometimes even promoting development of unregulated areas. 

These locations are titled as “special economic zones” by the developers.

The areas are meant to house brothels, online gambling operations, and illicit products manufacturing established by Chinese triad groups.

Billions of dollars in capital gets poured into these crime zones on the assumption they will attract millions of gamblers worldwide, tourists, and foreign workers, to capture a share of the multi-trillion dollar illegal gaming industry.

Then pandemic also forced criminal organizations to pivot. Suddenly, the “business plans” for huge gambling facilities collapsed with the airborne virus causing closures.

 Lockdowns and strict border controls meant Asian workers and gamblers could no longer travel freely to gambling centres or elsewhere such as Macau.

Criminal gangs’ needed new sources of revenue to keep operations increasing so human trafficking “labour” intensified exponentially.

Second, countries in Asia such as China initiated an unprecedented campaign to incentivize many of its nationals to return home or face strict penalties.

In response, organized crime gangs began large-scale trafficking of alternative labour programs in these zones.

The criminals even developed new tools for international investment or crypto-currency-fraud schemes that rely on large numbers of scammers building personal contacts with potential victims on social media including ransonware or RaaS.

While the global pandemic shut down media, law enforcement, and civil society as a whole, the ability to monitor and expose these activities was drastically reduced.

The remote cirminal locations established by global mafia groups offer a safe haven for expanding criminal operations in other countries.

The impunity of criminals in these lawless countries reinforces corrupt relationships with police, local officials, overseas associations, and government party organizations. 

Crime researchers and law enforcement alike are beginning to understand the vast scale of the crisis at hand.

As well as the criminal networks’ growing influence in corrupt states with a weak adherence to laws such as Laos and Cambodia.

Asia’s Crime Zones

Criminally run enclaves began systematic subversion of state control and authority in Southeast Asia in the late 2000s.

While occasional law enforcement did maintain the rule of law in some countries, others such as Cambodia only led Chinese gangs expanding across jurisdictions and setting up criminal networks.

These networks develop revenue streams from criminal activity including human trafficking, prostitution, drug manufacturing/sales, and other unlawful activity.

Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) government successfully disrupted construction of the a crime city project being established by crime networks from China.

The NLD did this by challenging the Chinese government on the developers claims that it represented part of the China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). 

China publicly distanced itself from the crime city in late 2020 after a Chinese news report exposed the criminal history of one of the key investors.

The major crime city investor named “She Zhijiang” is a fugitive from Chinese law enforcement and has long been linked to illegal online gambling in Asian countries including the Philippines and Cambodia.

In the wake of the reports and the actions of the NLD, Thailand shut off the power and telecommunications services to crime city “Shwe Kokko”.

This brought the illicit activity of both the development of the crime city and criminal gang activity in the area to a standstill before 2021.

Myanmar Coup Expands Lawlessness

Early 2021, Myanmar’s military overthrew the country’s civilian government. In light of the new “government” the criminal organizations and their criminal safe zones were re-established.

This included restoration of Thai electricity and internet to the crime city.   

Between 2021 and 2022, as the pandemic spread across the region, with waves of virus re-infection, construction of new crime areas exploded along a 30 Mile stretch along the Moei River.

Currently identified by local authorities are an 15 distinct criminal zones in the area.

By early 2022 the extent of criminal activity in the crime area enclaves began to balloon out of control.

This is as social media users from around the world began to expose reports of Malaysian nationals being trafficked into these crime zones and held hostage against their will. 

The victims’ stories all have a strikingly similar origination. Many respond to social media advertisements for a high-paying job in Asian countries.

Then are tricked into illegally crossing the border into the crime zones in countries such an Cambodia or Myanmar.

A Malaysian man began a romantic relationship through a well known social media platform.

After a brief encounter, the man wound up being trafficked into Myanmar. He was among a group of Indian tech workers who had responded to advertisements for lucrative IT (information technology) job in various South Asian countries.

Who were then trafficked to remote crime zones within country. Once they arrive in the crime zones, the trafficked victims are given one of three choices.

The trafficked victim is offered to: become staff of the criminal enterprise, pay ransom, or face physical and psychological torture.

The Crime Cities

Unlike “Shwe Kokko”, many of the newer crime zones are designed to perptrate crimes without a physical casinofor gamblers.

Instead, these crime cities are like community enclaves which appear more like penal colonies than gambling houses. 

One social media post features a particularly sinister enclave called the KK Zone. This zone is located on the Moei River across from a Thai military base at Mae Ku village. 

As many as 10,000 people are enslaved in the KK Zone. These victims are tortured, sexually or and physically abused.

Some victim accounts, claim they were threatened with having their organs harvested if they fail to generate adequate revenue from operating scams.

Additional reports include Indians, Indonesians, Taiwanese, Kenyans, Ukrainians and other nationals trafficked under similar conditions into Asia.

The crime zones have not only menaced the region but have even reverberating the world, by taking free people and making them modern day slaves.

Dismantling a Crime Group

Pressure from victim’s families and media reports began to mount as the scale of the problem became apparent in multiple countries.

In Cambodia, particularly, media reports prompted ASEAN countries to demand the government take steps to free tens of thousands of Thai, Malaysian, and Indonesian victims.

Meanwhile, Thai authorities announced that they had arrested the billionaire fugitive investor behind the development of the crime city “Shwe Kokko”.

She Zhijiang, was charged for fraud and running a “criminal gang” operation. Law enforcement across the region hailed his apprehension as a “major win” against organized crime.

However some legal analysts questioned how the gang leader managed to evade authorities for nearly a decade.

He was able to travel from China on a fraudulent Cambodian passport and sign contracts with key think tank affiliates within China’s pre-eminent government planning groups.

Following the arrest of She Zhijiang, very little has changed in dismantling the operation.

As two of his business partners in developing Shwe Kokko are still working underground. Gangster Ma Dongli and Hainan political operator Zhong Baojia currently remain unapprehended.

Zhong continues to hold several official titles with business associations located in Hainan and Henan Provinces.

Zhong was awarded for his “philanthropy work” just months before the arrest of his partner Zhijiang.

Meanwhile, construction on crime city “Shwe Kokko” continues undeterred by the arrest of. Zhijiang.

A spokesperson for the construction company developing the crime city has publicly indicated that the arrest will “not impact the project.”

The company which includes among its shareholders the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), has vowed to press forward in spite of the black mark.

Crime City Network

The sinister activity of the cybercriminals became alarmingly apparent when a Cambodia-based Chinese media outlet began running a series of advertisements promoting the Shwe Kokko Yatai New City.

Some of the advertisements even included QR codes that link the potential human trafficking victims to an app developed just for the Yatai New City.

It advertises a range of businesses located in the new city and provides a link to Yatai IHG’s investment department and another to a money transfer app.

The advertisements demonstrate that the Yatai IHG continue to operate despite the arrest of She Zhijiang and suggest there is a market in Cambodia for quasi-legal “businesses” to relocate to Myanmar.

Lawless Countries are Crime Magnets

Several countries across the region struggle to address this new form of criminal activity. Many have emerged as preferred locations for criminal groups to base their human trafficking and cyber-scam operations.

Revenue moved by organized crime from crime cities to legitimate countries with banking institutions via leaky borders have become a key pillar of the crime group survival strategy.

The Karen BGF which is headed by “Bo Chit Thu” provides security to all of these zones along the border, and now reaps massive profits from growing criminal empires.

There are considerable obstacles for serious crackdown on organized crime in lawless countries. However reduction under current circumstances is not impossible as long as their is a will of the people for change.

While corrupt government regimes which hold power, offer safe havens for criminal enterprises , organized crime will spread to new countries. As a result, this criminal activity increasingly poses a global security threat.

Even the Chinese police have publicly described Myawaddy as “terrifying” and warned Chinese nationals not to travel these locations for worry of being trafficked.

Unfortunately, every day, hundreds of unsuspecting victims from across the globe are trafficked into these crime cities lured with the promises of a better life.

The Global Security Threat

Human trafficking is a major global crisis. it is one example of how illegitimate military regimes allow criminal organizations to become enriched through modern day slavery.

This damages the global security interests not only of Asian nations, but of every country in the world.

Even people from countries as distant as Canada and The United States, are affected.

Where advertisements for lucrative technology jobs in Southeast Asia have recently begun to appear for job placements throughout North America.

Criminal activity at this enormous scale represents a massive global security threat. Organized criminals must be stopped and human trafficking must be brought to an end.

The first step to eradicate human trafficking is for nations on the global stage to address how these lawless countries are exploiting governance gaps and to remove the gaps.

The next steps are to shut off resources to criminal networks. Resources which can create opportunities such as moving laundered funds for development of crime cities.

Failure to address these growing challenges to global security will only encourage the unrestrained spread of organized crime and its mutation into even more sinister forms of criminal activity.