The Compound

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1:07For bundle subscribers, terms apply. This episode contains adult content. Please use discretion. In 2023, a 26-year-old woman named Jella was living in a city in the Philippines, where she'd been working a corporate desk job. but she didn't enjoy it. She was more passionate about her hobby, taking day trips and hikes around the Philippines and posting videos about them online. And she hears about an opportunity to go abroad to Thailand to work. This is journalist Denise Chan. The job Jella had heard about was a customer service job and the employers were looking for English speakers. Jella had several phone calls with recruiters who were also from the Philippines.

2:02They told her all about the job. Room and board would be provided at an office campus located in the Thak province in Thailand, about five and a half hours north of Bangkok, right on Thailand's border with Myanmar. The province is known for its national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. Elephants, tigers, and leopards live there. And it is Thailand's largest waterfall. She's always wanted to go to Thailand. And she thinks, okay, maybe I can take this job and go to Thailand, work, and then on my days off, I can go travel. Jella got the job. It was a one-year contract. She was hoping she could spend her time in Thailand posting more content and getting a bigger audience for her videos.

2:49And that she might earn enough money to send some back home. So Jella gets on a plane, and she flies over to Bangkok. She quickly is picked up by a driver, and they drive somewhere. They drove for a long time. Jella didn't know the way to her new office, but after a while, she began to feel like they were going too far, further than she'd expected. And the driver didn't speak English, so she couldn't ask any questions. After a long journey, they arrived at a bridge. Jella grabbed her luggage and got out. That's the time I realized that I was lied to. This is Jella. That's not her real name. Denise Chan spoke with her for the podcast Scam Factory, which Denise hosts.

3:44Jella told Denise that she was confused about what they were doing there. The bridge was long. Cars were going by in both directions. and there were pedestrian walkways across it. Two men and a woman were there waiting for Jella. They didn't speak English, but they were gesturing to her. They're asking her to cross this bridge. And she's looking at this bridge, and there's signage everywhere, and it's very clear that once she crosses, it will mean that she's exiting Thailand, and it will mean that she's entering Myanmar. And this is something that starts to raise alarm bells for Jella right away because she had heard about a lot of human trafficking happening going into Myanmar.

4:32What's going on in Myanmar? What's the situation in the country? So Myanmar at the present is going through a civil war. A military junta had overthrown the democratically elected government. And so as a result of that, there's a bunch of civil unrest and also a lot of internal fighting in Myanmar. So this is not a place where she wants to be? No, not at all. Jala later told Denise that she didn't know what to do. So she pulled out her phone. She's in a foreign country. She doesn't speak the language. She doesn't know where she is. If she were to run, she doesn't even know how she would get back home.

5:19So she picks up her phone and she goes into this group chat that she has with her recruiters. And she's texting them and asking them, is this right? Am I actually going into Myanmar? And the recruiters are reassuring her. They're saying, yes, yes, yes, this is correct, this is correct. Jella tried to ask why she was going to Myanmar. also known as Burma, when the job was supposed to be in Thailand. Her recruiters told her not to worry. She had a visa for Myanmar, so everything would be fine. She asked them how she'd leave Myanmar if she entered, and one of the women on the phone said it wouldn't be a problem.

6:03There were armed men near the bridge, but the recruiters told Jella she'd be safe. They said there were escorts waiting for her on the other side, who would take her to the office. I already want to back out and it was very scary at the bottom of the bridge it was a river so I have nothing to go except to follow the instructions I'm just thinking that if I escape what will happen to me and then if I go through what will happen to me too and then Jella crossed the bridge I'm Phoebe Judge this is Criminal

6:49When she got to the other side of the bridge, Jella was picked up by men in uniforms, with guns. They drove through an area with unpaved roads and open fields. And then they arrived at a steel gate, with guards in uniform. Beyond the gate, Jella saw lots of concrete buildings. There are buildings everywhere. There are dorm buildings everywhere. There's restaurants. There's supermarkets. There's stores for you to pick things up at. It's almost like a mini city in the middle of nowhere. There were tree-lined streets. But on the roofs of some of the buildings, there were floodlights. And there were guards by the doors.

7:33Jella was taken to the dorms on the second floor of a white, two-story building. where she was eventually assigned a room. There are four bunk beds, and essentially there are seven girls sharing one small room together. Angela is assigned the bottom bunk, and one of the things she does is she gets a small little towel to put up on the side of her bunk bed just to give herself a little bit of privacy. She was taken to an office on the first floor. It was patrolled by guards. And then she learned that she wasn't going to be working a customer service job. She was going to be scamming people, just like everyone else there.

8:21Most of them had been trafficked here from other countries, just like Jella, thinking they were accepting a regular job and had no idea they'd be forced to scam. Jella's passport was confiscated, and she was told that if she wanted to leave, she'd have to pay her bosses$4 ,000 U.S. dollars, which some people did. They were told they owed the scam operators money for flights, visas, and recruiter fees. If she couldn't pay, or if her family couldn't pay, she would have to work. Some people worked romance scams, and others did investment scams. But Jella's job would be different. Jella learns very, very quickly that her job is actually sextortion.

9:10She is expected to essentially talk to strangers on dating apps and convince them to take the conversation to the next level, to go on video chat. and that's when she would pass the customer, they called them customers, over to her boss in order to film them, film this customer masturbating, and eventually use that footage to blackmail the customer for money. Jella says she was shocked. Jella followed a script when she was texting the strangers on dating apps. And usually the men she was texting with started sending her photos of themselves, nude photos. I can't bear to see it, like that kind of pictures with the nudity.

10:09That was so hard for me because I haven't seen any pornography or any videos about it in the Philippines. Denise Chan says that refusing to work wasn't an option. People who had refused said they'd been threatened with physical violence. One person was told that if he tried to escape, there was a, quote, shoot-to-kill order. Experts like Ling Li, a former Chinese police officer who studies human trafficking in East and Southeast Asia, talked to many people who managed to get out of scam compounds, like the one Jella had ended up in, and learned that there's usually only three ways that people escape.

10:52Either the family pays the ransom, which can be as high as 30 ,000 U.S. dollars, or people manage to get in touch with police or local NGO who can try to help them. The only other option is to attempt an escape on your own. But it's risky. In Myanmar, nearby villagers are promised lots of money if they keep an eye out for escapees.

11:20we'll be right back

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13:44Jella says that her bosses at the compound communicated with her and the other Filipino workers through a translator. So one of the reasons why Filipinos are targeted for these compounds is because of their ability to speak English and scam people from English-speaking countries. But people from lots of different countries are being trafficked to Myanmar to work scams. Jella had ended up at a place known as KK Park The whole park covered an area of about three square miles Aerial photos show that in 2019 it was all just farmland But after Myanmar's military coup in 2021 there was no central government or active law enforcement in the area and criminal groups moved in So even if Jella let people know where she was it would be very difficult for anyone to help her.

14:41Jealous Compound was run by a Chinese crime syndicate. She says that every day when she reported for work, her bosses would take her phone, likely so they could see what she'd been doing or who she'd been talking to. She'd get it back at the end of the day. There are cameras around the entire compound, and all of their monitors as they're working how they're chatting, who they're chatting with, is surveilled as well. So all of their actions are constantly monitored. And what is her working day like? What are the conditions like? So she is working pretty much 14, 16 hours a day. And if they don't reach certain scam quotas, the expectation is to work even more hours and to stay there to work even more hours.

15:35And so really, every single day, all she's doing is getting up, working 14, 16 hours, heading straight back to her dorm, resting, then waking up and doing it all over again. And it's pretty much seven days a week. Every month, they get maybe one or two days off. Their workday was scheduled so they could chat with people in different time zones. And they usually stopped working around 1 a.m. I mean, is there anything for them to do besides work and sit in their room? Not really. They work, they sit in their room, they go to the food court to eat, and that's pretty much what their life is. Does she make any friends?

16:22Jella does get really close with her co-workers because they spend so much time together. It's a smaller group of maybe 10, 15 people, and many of them she lives together with in the dorm. And so there's really not much separation. And so as a result, they do become close. Every day, Jella had to get at least two people on the dating apps to agree to do a video call. But she says she had a hard time meeting the quota. Within two weeks, three weeks or so, it's very clear that Jella is not good at this job. And so they try to transfer her to another department. And so she starts working a different type of scam, which is a love scam.

17:08She's not very good at that either. The goal there is to chat up strangers and eventually get them to fall in love with you and send money over. Denise says that at the compound, there are all kinds of scams. Scams targeting people who like to gamble, people who are interested in investing, people who are looking for a loan, and people who are looking for love. There's a scam for everything. What I've learned from my reporting and talking to many sources is that there is a type of scam for any type of person. The scammers followed detailed scripts, often written by AI. A group of researchers who have investigated scam compounds got access to a handbook, which explained how to flirt and get someone's attention.

18:00One piece of advice read, If a girl shares many selfies with a peace gesture, you could open the conversation saying, You look so cute when you're doing the peace sign in your photos. How can a girl say no to a guy who pays attention to details such as her poses? One woman, also from the Philippines, told Denise that she was forced to scam a young university student in the UK out of 12 ,000 U.S. dollars, her tuition money. The student thought she had landed an online job reviewing hotels and just needed to temporarily transfer some money to secure the job. She lost all of it. The scammer told Denise that she just kept wishing the student would stop sending money.

18:50Eventually, she broke down in the office, but her boss told her that if she didn't scam this young woman, someone else would. She was told to get back to work. She told Denise she was deeply sorry for what she'd done, but felt like she had no other choice. It's often hard to go after these scam operators because they hide their tracks well. The operators wipe people's phones so there's no evidence of how they were recruited. And the bosses and recruiters don't use their real names. How much money are these scam factories making? Some of these companies are bringing out up to$400 ,000 a week. There can be dozens of companies within even just one building in these compounds.

19:43And so we're talking about millions of dollars. Jella didn't tell anyone back home about what was going on. She's close with her sister, who's 15 years older. And Jella would text her whenever she could. But Jella says that she'd lie to her sister and say everything was going well at her new job in Thailand. I don't want them to worry about me, that I was in that dangerous place. I just want them to think that I'm in good condition. And she's thinking a lot about her dad's health, for instance. Her dad has high blood pressure. And so Jella is afraid of, like, if she were to tell him what is really happening with her, how would he react?

20:37But then, on one of her days off, Jella was sitting in her bunk bed, texting with her sister. First it's just a normal talk with us chatting each other, like catching up. And then her sister told Jella that her father had asked how she was. When I hear about my father, I was so weak about my feelings for him. Then there I started spitting out every detail. Jella told her sister that she was forced to scam people every day. She didn't mention the sextortion. She told her sister that she couldn't leave. She didn't have her passport, and she didn't even know how to get back to the Philippines. The only way out was to pay her bosses 4 ,000 U.S.

21:26dollars. He said that, you will live there. We will find a way. I'm not usually the person who is asking help from them or asking money from them. And then suddenly, I was in that situation where I have nowhere to go and ask for that big amount of money. So it turned out to be a burden for them. I brought myself there and I gave them problems. They worked so hard for that money. Jella's sister told her she would find the money to get her out. And as soon as she could, Jella went to her boss and told him that she wanted to leave. She had the money. But the boss doesn't allow me to pay. He said, where are you leaving?

22:16We need you here. But I said, I want to go home. They said my reason was not valid, just because I don't want to stay there. Jella had been at the compound for about two months, working 14-hour shifts. One night, when she and her co-workers were about to finish their shift, their team leader told everybody to come outside. Her and her co-workers shuffle out onto the quad. They're lined up in front of her boss and her team leaders. And the boss basically makes an announcement. The punishments for not meeting the quota would now get more severe. You wouldn't get to eat. But Jella says that wasn't the worst part.

23:01They announced that by next month, we will be transferring to a different compound. Another building with a bigger fence. And it has another security guard. And Jella had heard rumors about this compound. This compound was one where they used electric batons. They would actually physically hurt you if you didn't reach quota. And so all of this is a huge blow for Jella because she was never really good at scamming to begin with. Actually, she hadn't even scammed anyone up until this point. Jella made a decision. I need to leave this compound before we transfer to that compound.

23:47We'll be right back.

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26:06After the announcement that they would be moved to a new compound, Jella and her friends decided that they had to move fast. They searched the internet for stories about people who had escaped compounds like theirs to find out how they had done it. They are doing it on their private phones when they're off work. While they're at work, they're trying to hide it behind chat windows. They're constantly looking over their shoulders, trying to make sure they don't get caught. Everything about Myanmar escape, we search it, and then right there we read the name Colonel Matalang. Colonel Matalang is the police attaché for the Philippines Embassy in Bangkok.

26:51They read that the colonel had helped other Filipinos escape scam compounds in Myanmar. They decided they needed to get in touch with him. The whole day we searched for his name on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, WhatsApp. They find him, and they reach out to him. And Colonel Mitalin responds and says, Yes, I can try to help you all get out of this place. But the colonel couldn't come to Myanmar to help them because of the political situation in the country. The people who control this land, the land that these compounds are on, are a patchwork of rebel groups. And Colonel Matalong, he, as a member of the Philippine government, cannot negotiate directly with rebel groups.

27:37However, what he can do is help to assist Jala and her co-workers negotiate a release for themselves. The colonel said he would try to guide them, tell them what to do and what to say to try to get out of the compound and out of the country. The first step is to try and find what he calls a complaint desk. Jella had never heard about a complaint desk at the compound. But Colonel Matalong explained to Jella and her friends that it wasn't their bosses at the scam compound who ran this complaint desk. It was the Burmese rebel groups who controlled the land that the compounds were on. The rebel groups were leasing the land to the Chinese crime syndicates.

28:20They were not directly managing what went on inside the compound. As landlords, they don't want the repercussions or they don't want the attention of any foreign nationals getting hurt on their land. And so there's an opportunity there for foreign nationals in these places to file a complaint. And so that is what Colonel Matalang is directing Jella and her co-workers to do. But Jella and her friends weren't sure how they'd even find the complaint desk. They had no idea where it was or what it looked like. The compound was big, and they were constantly being watched. The colonel told them to look for a bamboo hut.