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Credit to Author: Matt Burgess| Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2025 11:30:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n The plea for<\/span> help arrived last summer. \u201cI am in Myanmar and work for a fraud company,\u201d a Chinese human-trafficking victim wrote in a short email sent from within the Tai Chang scam compound. Like thousands of others in the region, they were promised legitimate work only to find themselves tricked into modern slavery<\/a> and forced to scam people online for hours every day. Tai Chang, which backs on to the Myanmar-Thailand border, has been linked to incidents<\/a> of torture<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m not safe, I\u2019m chatting with you secretly,\u201d they said. Despite the risk, their first request wasn\u2019t to be rescued.<\/p>\n Tai Chang\u2019s internet connection had recently been cut off from Thailand, the person wrote in the messages to anti-scam group GASO<\/a> in June 2024. Instead of scamming within the compound grinding to a halt, the organized criminals behind the operation found another way to stay online, they claimed. \u201cElon Musk\u2019s Starlink is installed above all the buildings in the campus where we are now,\u201d the individual wrote. \u201cNow the fraud work is running normally. If the fraud network here is down, we can regain our freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n Those messages soon landed on the desk of Erin West, then deputy district attorney for Santa Clara County, California. West, a longtime advocate for victims of so-called pig butchering<\/a> and other types of cryptocurrency scams, wrote to a lawyer at SpaceX, the company behind Musk\u2019s high-speed Starlink satellite internet system<\/a>. Starlink connections appeared to be helping criminals at Tai Chang to \u201cscam Americans\u201d and \u201cfuel their internet needs,\u201d West alleged at the end of July 2024. She offered to share more information to help the company in \u201cdisrupting the work of bad actors.\u201d<\/p>\n SpaceX and Starlink never replied, West claims.<\/p>\n Reports of the use of Starlink at Tai Chang are not a one-off\u2014criminals running multibillion-dollar empires across Southeast Asia appear to be widely using the satellite internet network. At least eight scam compounds based around the Myanmar-Thailand border region are using Starlink devices, according to mobile phone connection data reviewed by WIRED. Between November 2024 and the start of February, hundreds of mobile phones logged their locations and use of Starlink at known scam compounds more than 40,000 times, according to the mobile phone data, which was collected by an online advertising industry tool.<\/p>\n The eight compounds, spread around the Myawaddy region of war-torn Myanmar, likely have installed multiple Starlink devices. Photos of Tai Chang reviewed by WIRED appear to show dozens of white Starlink satellite dishes on a single rooftop, while human rights watchdogs and other experts say that Starlink use at the scam compounds has increased in the past year.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that SpaceX must have the capacity to stop this problem,\u201d says Rangsiman Rome, an opposition member of the House of Representatives in Thailand who chairs a parliamentary committee on national security and border issues. At the start of February, Rome tagged Musk in a post on X<\/a>, saying criminals are \u201cexploiting Starlink for massive fraud\u201d at scam compounds in the region. He did not get a reply, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know exactly where the compounds are,\u201d Rome says. \u201cIf we can target which compound uses Starlink and collaborate with SpaceX, we can stop the compound using Starlink.\u201d<\/p>\n Starlink\u2019s policies<\/a> state<\/a> that SpaceX may terminate services to users if they participate in \u201cfraudulent\u201d activities or if a system is used in unauthorized locations. It has previously<\/a> emailed users in locations it doesn\u2019t officially offer services to and threatened to shut down accounts.<\/p>\n The use of Starlink comes as officials in Thailand, Myanmar, and China have recently attempted<\/a> to crack down on scam compounds, freeing thousands<\/a>. However, support services for trafficking victims have faced USAID funding cuts<\/a> from Musk\u2019s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE<\/a>. Musk\u2019s ownership of the satellite network while serving as a federal employee has also fallen under increasing scrutiny, with reports suggesting Starlink connections could be turned off in Ukraine<\/a>. Meanwhile, the US Federal Aviation Administration is reportedly expanding its use of Starklink devices<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOur own technology is being used against us,\u201d says West, who founded the nonprofit Operation Shamrock<\/a> to take action against investment scammers. \u201cStarlink is an American company, and it is the backbone for how these bad actors are able to access Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n WIRED sent SpaceX a list of questions about the alleged use of Starlink at scam compounds, including coordinates of suspected scam compounds where phones have connected to the Starlink network. SpaceX did not respond to the request for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cIf SpaceX obtains knowledge that a Starlink terminal is being used by a sanctioned or unauthorized party, we investigate the claim and take actions to deactivate the terminal if confirmed,\u201d the company has previously said<\/a>.<\/p>\n