Within the compounds, which often have close links to Chinese organized crime groups and online gambling syndicates, victims are typically forced to work day and night to scam hundreds of people at a time. This includes carrying out long-running investment scams that have netted criminals up to $75 billion over the past few years. If the trafficking victims don’t comply, they are often beaten or tortured. Escape or paying a ransom is often the only way out.
Stable internet connections are crucial for the operations to be successful—from the initial targeting of potential human trafficking victims with false job postings to daily scamming and ultimately money laundering. Palm Naripthaphan, an executive adviser at Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), says scam centers along the border have historically used mobile connections from cell carriers in Myanmar or Thailand. They can also connect to fiber-optic cables in Thailand or run them across the river Moei, Naripthaphan says. Increasingly, Naripthaphan believes, Starlink has played a role.
The Musk-owned satellite system is composed of multiple elements. More than 6,000 Starlink satellites orbit Earth and beam down internet connectivity to white, rectangular Starlink dishes (dubbed Dishy McFlatface). Some are portable and easy to set up, and they provide internet connections in areas where there is little or no other options, including war zones such as Ukraine.
Starlink is not officially licensed in Myanmar, which has been embroiled in a bloody civil war since a military coup in 2021, and the service has reportedly been banned by the military junta. The company’s coverage map doesn’t list any availability in the country. But this hasn’t stopped Starlink terminals working and being frequently used in Myanmar to combat frequent internet shutdowns.
“It’s really the best thing going,” says David Eubank, the founder of the Free Burma Rangers, a Christian organization that provides humanitarian aid and tracks human rights abuses in Myanmar. The group uses around 80 Starlink systems to coordinate humanitarian relief, he says, adding that any blanket ban would be harmful. “If you can find perpetrators who are misusing it, you penalize them, but you don’t just shut the whole network down.”
Across eight known scam compound areas—KK Park, Tai Chang, Dongmei, Huanya, UK Compound, Gate 25, Apolo, and Shwe Kokko—mobile phones have logged thousands of occurrences of getting online using Starklink’s networks in recent months, according to data seen by WIRED. At least 412 devices listed Starlink as their internet provider at the compound locations between November and February, according to an analyst with access to location data from the online advertising industry. In total, 40,800 instances were logged.
“Last summer, when I was pulling data and I started to see Starlink pop up, I was surprised. Now I would be surprised if I pulled data for a compound and it didn’t have at least one Starlink connection pop up,” says the analyst, who was granted anonymity because they don’t have permission to talk publicly about the tools they use. At every compound they have checked, they say, they have found data indicating Starlink usage.
The analyst used an ad-tech tool, which they declined to name, to search areas around known scam compounds for records of mobile phone usage. The murky data broker industry sells highly specific data that’s collected by apps people use on their phones. The tool used by the analyst provides a phone’s IP address, physical coordinates, and the internet service provider they are using. The full results for the compounds included internet and cell providers from Thailand, Myanmar cell carriers, remote servers, and Starlink, the analyst says.
At KK Park, one of the largest and well-known scamming sites, which is shown above, at least 127 devices recorded 24,000 Starlink connections over three months. In total, 2,907 devices were active in the area, although around 800 of these did not list any particular carrier data, the analyst says.
