By HUIZHONG WU, JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI and MARTHA MENDOZA Associated Press

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) — Thousands of sick, exhausted and terrified young men and women, from countries all over the world squat in rows, packed shoulder to shoulder, surgical masks covering their mouths and eyes.

Their nightmare was supposed to be over.

Last month, a dramatic and highly publicized operation by Thai, Chinese and Myanmar authorities led to the release of more than 7,000 people from locked compounds in Myanmar where they were forced to trick Americans and others out of their life savings. But survivors have found themselves trapped once again, this time in overcrowded facilities with no medical care, limited food and no idea when they’ll be sent home.

One young man from India said about 800 people were being held in the same facility as him, sharing 10 dirty toilets. He said many of the people there were feverish and coughing. Like all former enslaved scammers who talked to The Associated Press, he spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.

“If we die here with health issues, who is responsible for that?” he asked.

The armed groups who are holding the survivors, as well as Thai officials across the border, say they are awaiting action from the detainees’ home governments.

It’s one of the largest potential rescues of forced laborers in modern history, but advocates say the first major effort to crack down on the cyber scam industry has turned into a growing humanitarian crisis.

The people released are just a small fraction of what could be 300,000 people working in similar scam operations across the region, according to an estimate from the United States Institute of Peace. Human rights groups and analysts add that the networks that run these illegal scams will continue to operate unless much broader action is taken against them.

A high-profile crackdown

The trapped people, some of whom are highly educated and fluent in English, were initially lured to Thailand with promises of lucrative office jobs, only to find themselves locked in buildings where they describe being forced to sit at computers up to 16 hours a day running scams. Refusing to work could bring beatings, starvation and electric shocks.

“Your passport is confiscated, you cannot go outside and everything is like hell, a living hell,” a trapped Pakistani man told The Associated Press.

Cyber scams run from compounds have flourished during the pandemic, targeting people around the world. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes estimates that between $18 billion and $37 billion was lost in Asia alone in 2023, with minimal government action against the criminal industry’s spread.

Beijing began pushing the region’s governments to crack down this year after a young Chinese actor was trafficked to Myanmar by people who promised him an acting job in Thailand. His girlfriend spearheaded a viral social media campaign that led to his release.

Following that rescue, a senior Chinese government official visited Thailand and Myanmar demanding an end to the scams. In response, Thailand cut electricity, internet and gas supplies to five border towns in Myanmar.

Shortly after, the ethnic militia groups that rule this part of Myanmar — the Kayin Border Guard Force and the Democratic Kayin Buddhist Army — asked some of the trapped scammers if they wanted to leave, and then escorted them out of their compounds.

From forced labor to detention

As the number of people released grew into the thousands, formerly enslaved scammers found themselves caught in indefinite detention just across a narrow, slow-moving river’s width from freedom.

Most are being held either in army camps controlled by the Kayin Border Guard Force, or repurposed scam compounds, where many have been since early February.

For weeks, men and women have shared unsanitary conditions, sleeping on the floor and eating what their captors provide. At one point, the Border Guard Force said that over 7,000 people were crammed into these facilities, as China began busing citizens across the border for flights.

Exclusive photos obtained by AP underscore the detainees’ desperation: Surgical masks, often two per face, cover their eyes, noses and mouths as they huddle under the watchful eyes of armed guards.

“It felt like a blessing that we came out of that trap, but the actual thing is that every person just wants to go back home,” said another Indian man, 24, speaking softly on a contraband phone from inside a makeshift detention center. He asked to not publish his name out of concern for his safety and because the militias guarding them had confiscated their phones.

Last week, fights broke out between Chinese citizens waiting to go home and the security forces guarding them, two detainees told the AP.

An unconfirmed list provided by authorities in Myanmar says they’re holding citizens from 29 countries including Philippines, Kenya and the Czech Republic.

Waiting for a $600 plane ticket

Authorities in Thailand say they cannot allow foreigners to cross the border from Myanmar unless they can be sent home immediately, leaving many to wait for help from embassies that has been long in coming.

China sent a chartered flight Thursday to the tiny Mae Sot airport to pick up a group of its citizens, but few other governments have matched that. There are roughly 130 Ethiopians waiting in a Thai military base, stuck for want of a $600 plane ticket. Dozens of Indonesians were bused out one morning last week, pushing suitcases and carrying plastic bags with their meager possessions as they headed to Bangkok for a flight home.

Thai officials held a meeting this week with representatives from foreign embassies, promising to move “as quickly as possible” to allow them to rescue their trapped citizens. But they warned that Thailand can only manage to receive 300 people per day, down from 500 previously, Monday through Fridays. It also announced it would let embassy staff cross over into Myanmar.

“The ministry attaches very high importance to this and is aware that there are sick people, and that they need to be repatriated,” Nikorndej Balankura, spokesman for Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday.

The Indian Embassy in Bangkok did not respond to requests for comment. The Czech Foreign Ministry says it cannot confirm a Czech citizen is among those repatriated. It says it is in touch with the embassies in Bangkok and Yangon over the issue and that the embassies have not been asked for assistance.

Amy Miller, the Southeast Asia director of Acts of Mercy International who is based at the Thai-Myanmar border, says it’s hard for the world to understand why all of the released workers aren’t free.

“You can literally, with your naked eye, stand at the border and see people inside, on their balconies, in these compounds, and yet we cannot reach them,” she said. Pausing a moment, she gestured out a nearby window toward the Friendship Bridge to Myanmar just blocks away. “I think what people don’t understand is that to enter into another country is an act of war. You cannot just go in and receive these people out.”

Assistance is scarce

Aiding the work on the front lines, especially for those countries with fewer resources, are a handful of small nonprofit groups with very limited funds.

In a nondescript Mae Sot home, Miller’s organization receives escapees and a trickle of survivors who have made it across the river with comfortable couches, clean water, food and working phones to reach their families. She said today’s unprecedented numbers are overwhelming the aid available across the river.

“When we’re looking at numbers in the thousands, the ability to get them over to Thailand and process them and house them and feed them would be impossible for most governments,” said Miller. “It really does require a kind of a global response.”

The recent abrupt halt to U.S. foreign aid funding has made it even harder to get help to released scam center workers.

The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, for example, previously funded care for victims of trafficking in scam compounds in one shelter in Cambodia, but was forced to halt that work by the Trump Administration’s funding freeze announced in January, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation. The halt to funding has also impacted a network of civil society groups that worked to stop human trafficking and rescue survivors in Thailand.

“It’s really heartbreaking to see that there’s such an immense amount of people that are in need of assistance,” said Saskia Kok, Head of Protection Unit in Thailand for the IOM.

In a statement, U.S. officials acknowledged the high pressure impasse.

“The United States remains deeply concerned about online scam operations throughout Southeast Asia, which affect thousands of Americans and individuals from many other countries,” said a State Department spokesperson in a statement sent to the AP.

A bigger problem

While advocates estimate some 50 million people are living in modern slavery, mass rescues of enslaved workers are rare. In 2015, more than 2,000 fishermen were rescued from brutal conditions at sea, liberated after an Associated Press investigation exposed their plight. That same year hundreds of Indians were rescued from brick factories in India. And last year Brazilian prosecutors rescued 163 Chinese nationals working in “slavery-like” conditions at an electric vehicle factory construction site in northeastern Brazil.

“What we are seeing at the Thai-Myanmar border now is the result of years of inaction on a trafficking crisis that has had a devastating impact on thousands of people, many of whom were simply seeking better economic prospect, but were lured to these compounds on false pretenses,” said Amnesty International Myanmar researcher Joe Freeman.

Being forced to commit a crime under threat of violence should not be criminalized, said Freeman. “However, in general we are aware of countries in the region repatriating their nationals from scam compounds only to then charge them with crimes.”

Business as usual

It’s not clear how much of an effect these releases will have on the criminal groups that run the scam centers.

February marked the third time the Thais have cut internet or electricity to towns across the river. Each time, the compounds have managed to work around the cuts. Large compounds have access to diesel-powered generators, as well as access to internet provider Starlink, experts working with law enforcement say.

“The resources is the one thing that they are not lacking and they’ve been able to bring them to bear in the past,” said Benedikt Hoffman, acting representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in the region.

The armed groups that staged the crackdown have also been accused of helping to run scam compounds in Myawaddy. The head of the Kayin Border Guard Force, General Saw Chit Thu, has been sanctioned by the European Union and the United Kingdom for profiting from scam compounds and human trafficking, respectively. Compounds in the DKBA’s control are less well-documented in the public record, but activists say they also control a fair number.

“There is clearly a lot of pressure on the Border Guard Force to take action and helping people to leave is one of the most visible ways to do so,” Hoffman said. “That said, it likely also reflects an adjustment to the business model, reducing the number of people involved — and with less attention, continuing lower key operations.”

It will take simultaneous pressure exerted in multiple areas to truly shut down the compounds, said Hoffman.

In this crackdown, there have been no major prosecutions or compounds shut down.

“This doesn’t affect anything,” said a 23-year-old Pakistani man who had hoped to be freed only to be trapped in an army camp. The bosses, he said, are “rich as hell” and can buy anything they need to keep the lucrative operations going. Meanwhile, he said, conditions are worsening.

“My friends are in really bad condition, we can’t survive here,” he said, requesting anonymity out of fear for retribution from his guards. He asks a question that’s been haunting him day in and day out for weeks: “Is anyone coming for us?”

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Mendoza reported for FRONTLINE (PBS). AP reporters Karel Janicek in Prague, Czech Republic, and Niniek Karmini and AP video journalist Andi Jatmiko in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.