Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice· 2026Q2
Coerced Perpetrators and Cryptocurrency Control Infrastructure: Southeast Asian Scam Compounds and the Limits of Classical Criminal Opportunity Theory
- 1citations
- Q2SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Southeast Asian scam compounds, generating an estimated $64 billion annually, employ trafficked laborers coerced into perpetrating cryptocurrency investment fraud, confounding classical criminal opportunity theories.
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Key points
- Southeast Asian scam compounds generate an estimated $64 billion in annual global revenues.
- These compounds use trafficked laborers coerced into perpetrating cryptocurrency investment fraud.
- The operations involve a three-party economic structure with dual victimhood (laborers and global victims).
- The study extends routine activity and rational choice theories to account for these novel criminal models.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
In November 2025, Karen National Liberation Army forces liberated more than 3,000 workers from 23 countries held inside the Shunda Park compound in Myanmar, exposing an industrial criminal model that confounds foundational criminological assumptions. Southeast Asian scam compounds, generating an estimated 64 billion dollars in annual global revenues, operate through a three-party economic structure in which trafficked laborers are coerced into perpetrating cryptocurrency investment fraud against a global victim pool. This article extends routine activity theory and rational choice theory to account for structurally coerced perpetrators, the labor-control and victim-extraction functions of cryptocurrency infrastructure, and the dual victimhood that defines these operations. Drawing on a mixed-methods analysis of federal indictments, sanctions designations, United Nations (UN) reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center data, and blockchain analytics, three theoretical propositions are advanced with accompanying policy implications.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Information Systems
Information SystemsComputer Science