Transnational Crime Stream

Latest Publications

BOOK: Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li, and Mark Bo, Scam: Inside Southeast Asia's Cybercrime Compounds, Verso, London and New York, 2025. Links to the English edition, Indonesian edition, and Taiwanese edition. Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Thai editions are forthcoming.

Running the gamut from the infamous ‘pig butchering’ romance con to sophisticated online extortion and investment fraud, Southeast Asia has emerged as the global hub for cybercrime. Based on years of field research, Scam takes an in-depth look at the history and inner dynamics of the region’s online scam industry. Revealed are the appalling working conditions—akin to modern slavery—in the hundreds of prisonlike compounds that have mushroomed throughout multiple countries.

BOOK CHAPTER: Ivan Franceschini and Ling Li, 'The Invisible Labour of Crime: Lessons from Southeast Asia’s Online Scam Industry’, in Edward Elgar Handbook of Chinese Labour Studies, edited by Chris King-chi Chan and Eric Florence, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, 2026 (forthcoming).

This book chapter calls for a wider examination of the invisible labour of cybercrime, showing how online scams rely on a vast ecosystem of coerced and precarious work. Using Southeast Asia’s scam compounds as a case study, it highlights how these operations function as zones of extreme labour extraction embedded in global capitalism, and argues for bringing labour studies and criminology into closer dialogue.

RESEARCH PAPER: Gilad Gressel, Rahul Pankajakshan, Shir Rozenfeld, Ling Li, Ivan Franceschini, Krishnashree Achutan, and Ysroel Mirsky, ‘Love, Lies, and Language Models: Investigating AI’s Role in Romance-Baiting Scams’, USENIX Security '26 conference. Link.

This paper investigates how large language models are being used to automate and amplify ‘romance-baiting’ online scams, finding that AI systems can already match or exceed human operators in building emotional trust with victims and that current safeguards fail to detect such misuse.

RESEARCH PAPER: Ling Li, Chong Liu, and Ivan Franceschini, ‘The Gendered Life-cycle of Forced Criminality: Female Victims in Southeast Asia’s Online Scam Industry’, Critical Asian Studies, online first. Link.

This article examines the situation of women trafficked into Southeast Asia’s scam compounds from a life-cycle perspective. It shows how these compounds operate through gendered coercion that involves sexual violence, reproductive control, and emotional manipulation. Across recruitment, captivity, and reintegration, the women at the centre of this research lacked community support and were forced into precarious survival strategies. The article calls for sustained gender-sensitive interventions that genuinely disrupt rather than reproduce these cycles of exploitation.

RESEARCH PAPER: Ling Li, Ivan Franceschini, and Mark Bo, '东南亚地区诈骗园区为何屡禁不止——以柬埔寨为例 [Why Are Scam Compounds so Rampant in Southeast Asia? Taking Cambodia as a Case Study]', 南洋问题研究 3/2025. Link.

Taking Cambodia as a case study, this paper explores why scam compounds in Southeast Asia persist despite repeated crackdowns. Based on fieldwork and victim interviews, it shows how local elites, governance gaps, and global cybercrime networks sustain these operations, arguing they are not just a “China problem” but deeply rooted in regional political economies.

RESEARCH PAPER: Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li, Yige Hu, and Mark Bo, 'A New Type of Victim? Profiling Survivors of Modern Slavery in the Online Scam Industry in Southeast Asia', Trends in Organized Crime, 2024. Link.

The paper analyses the rise of large scam compounds in Southeast Asia and the trafficking of thousands of workers into them. Using surveys and interviews with Chinese and other survivors, it examines victim backgrounds and recruitment methods such as fake job ads, acquaintances, and kidnappings. It argues that these victims share key characteristics with ‘traditional’ human trafficking victims, underscoring the need for systematic information-sharing to prevent recruitment and strengthen survivor support.

RESEARCH PAPER: Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li, and Mark Bo, 'Compound Capitalism: A Political Economy of Southeast Asia's Online Scam Operations', Critical Asian Studies 55(4): 575-604. Link.

The paper traces the evolution of the online scam industry from its origins in China and Taiwan to its consolidation in large walled compounds in Southeast Asia, where thousands of coerced workers are made to run scams under highly regimented and exploitative conditions. Drawing on fieldwork and survivor interviews in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos, it provides the first systematic analysis of how these compounds operate and profit. It argues that scam compounds exemplify “compound capitalism,” a new form of predatory capital.

JOURNAL ISSUE: 'Scammed: Dissecting Cyber Slavery in Southeast Asia', Global China Pulse 3(1), 2024, edited by Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li, and Mark Bo. Link.

This issue takes readers inside Southeast Asia’s scam compounds, unpacking how cyber slavery has reshaped local economies, borderland politics, and global crime networks. Through field reports, survivor perspectives, and expert analyses, it shows how scams intertwine with corruption, militias, and illicit finance, while exposing the profound human costs of this new form of predatory capitalism.

In the Media

• Ivan Franceschini, Charlotte Setijadi, and Ling Li, 'They Escaped Appalling Conditions in Scam Factories. Now, They Are Living on the Streets in Cambodia', The Conversation, 11 February 2026. Link.
• Ivan Franceschini and Ling Li, 'Victims and Villains', Aeon, 2 February 2026. Link.
• Nick J. Freeman, 'Cybercrime Unchained', Mekong Review, November 2025. Link.
• Alexander Clapp, 'Pig Butchering', London Review of Books 47(20), November 2025. Link.
• The Guardian, 'The Guardian View on the Online Scam Industry: Authorities Must Not Forget That Perpetrators Are Often Victims Too', The Guardian, 13 October 2025. Link.
• Kurt Johnson, 'Chilling Stories from Inside South-East Asia’s "Scam Factories"', Sydney Morning Herald, 8 October 2025. Link.
• Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li, and Mark Bo, 'Cambodia Is Vowing to "Rid" the Country of Scam Compounds. But We’ve Seen Several Still Operating in the Open', The Conversation, 8 August 2025. Link.
• Neil Loughlin, 'The Origins of Southeast Asia's "Scamdemic"', The Diplomat, 8 August. Link.
• Cezary Podkul, Ivan Franceschini, and Ling Li, 'SCAM', talk at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong, 14 July 2025. Link to event video.
• Tom Knowles, 'The Asian "Cyber Slaves" Forced to Scam You – or Face Horrific Torture', The Telegraph, 25 June 2025. Link.
• Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li, and Mark Bo, '「現代の奴隷」が20万人以上も...東南アジア特殊詐欺、虐待の日々から逃げ出す「唯一の脱出法」とは？[More than 200,000 "Modern Slaves"... What Is the "Only Way" to Escape the Daily Abuse in Southeast Asia's Scam Compounds?]', Newsweek Japan, 25 April 2025. Link.
• Ivan Franceschini, Ling Li, and Mark Bo, 'Scam Factories: The Inside Story of Southeast Asia Brutal Fraud Compounds', The Conversation, 24 February 2025. Link.

Recent Events

• BOOK TALK: Ivan Franceschini and Ling Li discuss Scam: Inside Southeast Asia's Scam Compounds at Readings Emporium, Melbourne, 15 October 2025.
• BOOK TALK: Ivan Franceschini and Ling Li discuss Scam: Inside Southeast Asia's Scam Compounds at Bookbar, Singapore, 12 September 2025.
• SEMINAR: Ivan Franceschini, 'Scam: A Conversation with the Author', Singapore Management University, 11 September 2025.
• SEMINAR: Ivan Franceschini, 'Global China's Dark Side? Challenging Racialised Readings of the Online Scam Industry in Southeast Asia', Nanyang Technological University, 11 September 2025, link.
• BOOK TALK: Ivan Franceschini and Ling Li discuss Scam: Inside Southeast Asia's Scam Compounds at the Foreign Correspondents' Club, Hong Kong, 14 July 2025.