A polished job advertisement can be a trap.
A generous salary. A sponsored visa. A paid flight. A position requiring fluent English, digital skills and confidence online.
For a young graduate struggling to find work, there may be nothing obviously suspicious about such an offer. That is precisely why these trafficking networks are so effective.
The advertised job may not exist at all.
Instead, recruits can arrive in another country, have their passports confiscated, and be taken to a heavily guarded compound from which they cannot leave. There, they are forced to operate online scams — impersonating people, manufacturing romantic relationships and manipulating strangers into sending money.
Those who fail to meet targets can face beatings, starvation, confinement and other forms of abuse. Families may be pressured to borrow money, sell property or go into debt to secure their relatives' release.
This is not simply cybercrime. It is human trafficking.
I heard versions of this story firsthand during a recent visit to Rwanda, where I met survivors who had been lured through fraudulent employment offers. They were educated, fluent in English and comfortable with technology — precisely the qualities traffickers needed.
They were forced to impersonate women online, cultivate romantic relationships with victims in Europe and persuade them to transfer money.
The cruelty of this system is that it creates victims on both sides of the screen. One person is imprisoned and coerced into committing fraud. Another is deceived and potentially loses their savings. Meanwhile, the criminal network profits from both.
The scale is enormous. At least 300,000 people are estimated to have been trafficked or coerced into scam compounds across Southeast Asia, with victims identified from at least 80 countries and territories.
And the problem is spreading.
Fraudulent recruitment is increasingly reaching young people in Africa, including in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Social media and messaging platforms give traffickers a cheap, global recruitment infrastructure. A criminal organisation can advertise in one country, move recruits through another and exploit them somewhere else.
When authorities disrupt one compound, the operation can relocate and continue.
The international response remains dangerously fragmented.
A labour authority may see an illegal recruiter. Border officials may see suspicious travel. Police may see online fraud. Consular officials may see a citizen in distress abroad.
The traffickers see something different: opportunities created by the gaps between those institutions.
That has to change.
Governments need systems that allow jobseekers to verify overseas employers, recruitment agencies, contracts and visas before they travel. Labour authorities, immigration officials, police and consular services need to exchange information rapidly and investigate trafficking networks as interconnected criminal enterprises rather than isolated incidents.
Technology companies also have responsibilities.
Fraudulent recruitment is not necessarily happening in hidden corners of the internet. Traffickers can use mainstream social media, messaging applications and job platforms to find their targets.
Platforms should identify and remove deceptive recruitment advertisements, make reporting straightforward and preserve evidence that can help investigators identify the networks behind them. Prevention campaigns should also be designed with survivors and delivered on the same platforms where recruitment takes place.
But perhaps the most important principle is this:
People forced to commit online scams while being trafficked are victims, not perpetrators.
Some survivors escape the compounds only to face detention, deportation or prosecution for immigration violations and crimes they committed under coercion.
That compounds the original injustice.
From 2022 to 2025, the International Organization for Migration assisted more than 3,500 victims from 39 countries who had been trafficked for forced criminality in Southeast Asia. Survivors need protection, healthcare, psychological support, safe repatriation and meaningful assistance to rebuild their lives.
Jobseekers can take precautions. A genuine employer should have a verifiable physical presence. The employment contract should clearly describe the work. The visa should correspond to the advertised position. Recruiters should not demand secrecy, insist on immediate travel or ask applicants to surrender their passports.
But these safeguards are not enough.
Modern trafficking operations are deliberately designed to look legitimate. Fraudulent websites, convincing contracts, professional-looking advertisements and persuasive recruiters can make a criminal enterprise appear indistinguishable from a genuine employer.
It is therefore wrong to place the primary burden of prevention on individual jobseekers.
A young person should not need to possess investigative skills to determine whether a seemingly legitimate international employer is actually part of a trafficking network.
Governments must make verification reliable and accessible before people board a plane. Technology companies must disrupt recruitment channels. Criminal justice systems must pursue the networks that profit from exploitation. And authorities must recognise coercion when survivors emerge from these compounds.
The fundamental question is no longer simply how people can avoid scams.
It is whether governments, technology companies and international institutions are willing to close the systems' gaps that allow traffickers to recruit, transport and exploit people at scale.
For many victims, trafficking begins with something completely ordinary: a message on a phone offering a job.
That is where prevention must begin too.
Every jobseeker should be able to ask:
Is this a real opportunity — or am I being recruited into a trap?
No one should have to answer that question alone.
