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Burma’s government approved the death penalty for Internet scammers, just months after the FBI announced a sweeping crackdown on $8 billion of scam networks originating from the country, according to the country’s state-backed media.
According to The Global New Light of Myanmar, a media outlet jointly run by a private company and the country’s interior ministry, anti-online scam legislation passed the country’s parliament on Tuesday, greenlighting the death penalty for anyone who takes part in scams, including if they “violence, torture, unlawfully arrest or detain, or treat any person in a cruel manner.”
Burma, also known as Myanmar, has become a base for digital scams, where criminals often recruit immigrants from other Asian countries with promises of legitimate work only to have them imprisoned and forced to carry out scams.
In May the FBI announced a large-scale crackdown on a criminal network in Burma known as the “Democratic Karen Benevolent Army.” The operation resulted in the seizure of 127,000 bitcoins worth more than $8 billion as of July.
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Multinational victims of scam centers who were defrauded or trafficked to work in Myanmar stand on a ship floating towards the Thai side of the border through the Moi River in Phop Phra district of Tak province, Thailand on February 12, 2025. (Reuters/Crit Fromskla na Sakolnakorn)
The FBI previously told Fox News Digital that the scammers, who allegedly have ties to Chinese organized crime, were specifically targeting Americans in their campaigns and extorting more than $3 million from an elderly American.
In 2025, Chinese, Thai and Burmese authorities freed more than 7,000 people from detention facilities in Burma.
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Victims of scam centres, who were duped or trafficked to work in Myanmar, were trapped in a complex inside KK Park, a fraud factory and a human trafficking center on the Thailand-Myanmar border, following a multinational crackdown on complexes run by criminal gangs conducted by the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) in Myawaddy, Myanmar on February 26, 2025. (Reuters/Stringer)
While the new anti-online scam law orders death penalty only for crimes that cause the death of another person, the law orders 10 years in prison for any instance of forced labor in connection with cyber crime.
The approval of the law comes two days before the UN International Organization for Migration’s World Day against Trafficking in Persons. This year the international organization will celebrate the day on July 30 under the theme “Trapped Behind the Scam”.
People from different nationalities, who were working at the KK Park complex in Myanmar, travel in a boat across the Moi River to go from Myanmar to Thailand, as seen from Mae Sot district, Tak Province area on October 24, 2025. (Sarot Maksophavanakul/Thai News Pix/AFP via Getty Images)
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“People caught in the scam are victims of trafficking, forced to commit crimes through violence, threats and coercion. They deserve protection, not punishment,” IOM Director-General Amy Pope said in a statement. “We must work together to support survivors, stop traffickers, and close the gaps these criminal networks exploit. No country can tackle this alone.”
The United Nations estimates that South Pacific scams could result in losses of more than $114 billion in 2025.
