Just before 8 a.m. one morning last April, Amani posted another one of his fake, nauseating “motivational” speeches in our office WhatsApp group. He loved doing that—500 words of corporate nonsense about “opportunity,” “connection,” and “bringing value.” He told us to treat the next customer like we were offering them something meaningful.
That was the lie we were forced to live under every day.
I wasn’t working in a real company. None of us were. We were trapped inside a pig-butchering scam compound, a criminal operation designed to steal people’s lives and savings through fake romance and fake crypto investments. The victims on the other end of the screen—many of them Americans—lost hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions. And us? We were victims too, just locked on the inside.
When Amani sent that message, we were already eight hours into a brutal 15-hour night shift inside a high-rise building in the Golden Triangle special economic zone in northern Laos. Our passports were gone. We were trapped by debt, threats, and fear. Every day we failed to meet scam quotas, our debt grew. Every rule we broke meant punishment. Anyone who tried to escape didn’t just get fired—they got beaten, tortured, or worse. Some never came back.
What the outside world finally learned—thanks to leaks shared with WIRED—is how sick and twisted life inside these scam factories really is. The compound I was trapped in, known as the Boshang compound, is just one of dozens across Southeast Asia. Together, these places enslave hundreds of thousands of people, many lured from poor regions of Asia and Africa with fake job offers. We were forced to become tools in what is now one of the most profitable cybercrime systems on Earth.
I am Mohammad Muzahir. At first, I hid behind the name “Red Bull” because that’s what survival demanded. While I was still imprisoned, I reached out to WIRED. I risked everything to expose what was happening inside. I shared internal documents, scam scripts, training manuals, operational charts, photos, videos—proof of the machinery that crushed us every day.
The most damning evidence came from screen recordings of our internal WhatsApp group chats. Three months of messages—later turned into 4,200 pages of screenshots—showed every hour of our lives. Orders. Threats. Public shaming. Fake encouragement layered over cruelty. It was a workplace built on terror.
As former California prosecutor Erin West said after reviewing the chats, this place was “a slave colony pretending to be a company.” Another expert, Jacob Sims from Harvard, called it an “Orwellian veneer of legitimacy.” That’s exactly what it felt like—smiles painted over chains.
Hours after Amani’s cheerful pep talk, a higher-level boss reminded us of the truth: “Don’t resist the company’s rules and regulations. Otherwise you can’t survive here.” Twenty-six people reacted with thumbs-ups and salutes—not because they agreed, but because refusal meant punishment.
In just 11 weeks, more than 30 workers in our group were forced to scam at least one victim, stealing about $2.2 million total. And still, the bosses screamed that it wasn’t enough. We were fined constantly. Insulted. Degraded.
They didn’t need bars or locked cells. Debt did the job. I was told I earned 3,500 yuan a month—about $500—for 75 hours of night work every week. But fines destroyed that lie. Miss a “first chat” with a victim? Fine. Fall asleep? Fine. Talk to a friend? Fine. Be late to the dorm? Fine. Question a fine? It doubled.
I was told that if I paid $5,400, my passport would be returned and I’d be free. The chats proved that freedom was a lie. Salaries were stripped away, one punishment at a time, until escape became impossible.
This wasn’t just a scam targeting outsiders. It was a system built to break everyone it touched—on both sides of the screen.
And Amani knew exactly what he was doing.