Is Bangladesh the next base for Chinese scam networks?
Six people appeared before a court in Cox's Bazar and were sent to jail on September 4 after police raided a hotel and uncovered what investigators believe may be one of Bangladesh's largest organised cyber-fraud operations.
Nearly 2,000 iPhones, dozens of laptops and desktop computers, and a purpose-built facility for managing hundreds of online identities were seized.
Those arrested — five Chinese nationals and one Taiwanese national — have been charged with online fraud and cybercrime. Police say another 250 to 300 people, mostly Chinese and Taiwanese nationals, remain at large, along with several named fugitives believed to be the network's organisers.
The operation raises a question that extends beyond Cox's Bazar: is Bangladesh beginning to develop the kind of criminal ecosystem that has already turned parts of South and Southeast Asia into major centres of transnational fraud?
There is not yet enough evidence to suggest that Bangladesh has become a regional scam hub on the scale of Cambodia or Myanmar. But the Cox's Bazar case could be an early indication of a problem that, once established, can prove considerably harder to contain.
Myanmar offers a particularly stark warning. What began as relatively discrete online-fraud operations has evolved into a vast criminal economy spanning cyber fraud, human trafficking, money laundering and other forms of organised crime.
Similar networks have spread across several Southeast Asian countries, creating a transnational security problem that increasingly crosses borders rather than remaining confined to the jurisdictions where the scams are physically operated.
Bangladesh has some of the vulnerabilities that have allowed these networks to take root: relatively easy access for foreign nationals, weak oversight of rented properties, limited capacity to investigate cybercrime and the availability of local facilitators.
The question, therefore, is not simply whether foreign scam operators have arrived in Bangladesh, but whether the country is developing the conditions under which a wider criminal ecosystem could take root.
The operation raises a question that extends beyond Cox's Bazar: is Bangladesh beginning to develop the kind of criminal ecosystem that has already turned parts of South and Southeast Asia into major centres of transnational fraud? There is not yet enough evidence to suggest that Bangladesh has become a regional scam hub on the scale of Cambodia or Myanmar. But the Cox's Bazar case could be an early indication of a problem that, once established, can prove considerably harder to contain.
An operation hidden in plain sight
The Cox's Bazar investigation began with an unsuccessful police operation at Marina Beach Villas Resort in the Marine Drive area on August 25. Officers reportedly saw dozens of suspects flee across the open beach behind the property. A search of the resort's hall room nonetheless turned up the computer facility.
A second attempt to apprehend syndicate members also failed. Then, a third operation, days later, at two hotels in the town's Kolatoli area finally led to the six arrests.
Inside the resort, police found a hall converted into a computer facility, six soundproof rooms, 1,938 older-model iPhones, roughly 50 monitors, 44 CPUs, 30 keyboards, two laptops, two printers and 24 connection boards.
The six suspects were eventually detained during a subsequent raid on two hotels in Kolatoli, including Hotel Sea Palace, on the night of September 3, before being produced in court the following afternoon.
The equipment points to an operation designed to manage a large number of digital identities simultaneously.
Police initially suspected online gambling, but the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit is now investigating investment fraud involving fabricated market analysis, deceptive investment offers, cloned trading platforms and what investigators describe as "exit fraud", in which a fraudulent platform disappears with clients' money.
The unit has said forensic examination of the seized devices is still needed to confirm the exact nature of the activity.
The model resembles the "pig-butchering" scams that have proliferated across Asia. Victims are gradually cultivated through fabricated relationships or other forms of trust before being persuaded to invest increasingly large amounts through fraudulent platforms.
There may also have been another form of fraud operating from the same premises. Police recovered two Chinese national flags, a Chinese police rank badge and a tie bearing a police insignia.
Such items could very well be associated with scams involving the impersonation of Chinese law-enforcement authorities, often used to extort money from Chinese citizens living overseas.
What is already clear is that the operation was not confined to one property.
According to police, the group effectively took over Marina Beach Villas, arranging its own staff and security. Two other properties — Dream Holiday Resort and Orchid Blue in Ukhiya's Inani area — and a residential building known locally as "Ilyas Brothers" were allegedly used to accommodate additional members.
Many Chinese and Taiwanese nationals are believed to have been residing across the four properties since March, though police say they are still confirming how many were actively involved in the fraud.
The main property had reportedly been leased in April by a Chinese national using the alias "Babor Ali", with an associate executing the rental agreements.
Another man allegedly told the owners that he represented a construction company called “Jin Shin Construction”, but investigators have found no evidence that such a company exists.
The case demonstrates how easily an organised criminal operation can be established without the kind of infrastructure traditionally associated with Southeast Asia's major scam centres.
A network can rent ordinary properties, bring in equipment and personnel, and operate for roughly five months before attracting serious attention.
A regional industry under pressure
Across Southeast Asia, governments have spent the past year intensifying pressure on scam compounds that have generated billions of dollars through investment fraud, romance scams, impersonation and other forms of cybercrime.
The crackdown has increasingly involved international law enforcement. Cambodia extradited Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi to China in early January this year after the United States indicted him and moved to seize cryptocurrency allegedly linked to his network.
In April, a Dubai-led operation involving the FBI and Chinese police dismantled nine scam centres and led to at least 276 arrests.
The US Department of Justice, FBI and Secret Service formed a dedicated Scam Center Strike Force last year, which has since reported hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency seizures tied to Southeast Asian networks.
China has continued prosecuting individuals connected to major scam networks in the Kokang region of Myanmar, including cases that have ended in executions.
Yet the industry has not disappeared. It has become more mobile.
Sri Lanka offers an important illustration. A total of 1,093 foreign nationals were arrested there in cybercrime-related cases by August 14 this year, compared with 573 during the whole of 2024.
Sri Lankan police have said networks pushed out of Cambodia and Myanmar are exploiting the country's visa arrangements and operating from rented villas and guesthouses rather than fortified compounds.
Malaysia has faced similar cases involving Chinese nationals accused of cybercrime. On July 28, Malaysian police raided online centres in Forest City and arrested 335 people, including 309 Chinese nationals.
The significance of these developments extends beyond the movement of individual scammers. As established centres come under pressure, the infrastructure surrounding the industry — recruiters, managers, financial intermediaries, technology providers and facilitators — can also move across borders.
This is how a collection of scams can gradually become a criminal ecosystem. Bangladesh should be concerned about reaching that stage.
Why Bangladesh could become attractive
Cox's Bazar offers several characteristics that could appeal to a network looking for a temporary base. It has a large supply of hotels, resorts and rented properties, a substantial foreign visitor population and an economy accustomed to short-term visitors.
Ukhiya, where two of the properties linked to the investigation were located, presents additional vulnerabilities. It is at the centre of Bangladesh's Rohingya refugee response and has long faced trafficking and smuggling networks operating along the coast.
There is no concrete evidence yet connecting the Cox's Bazar cyber-fraud operation to those trafficking networks. But the same underlying governance challenges — difficult terrain, extensive population movements and stretched law-enforcement resources — can create opportunities for different forms of organised crime.
More importantly, the Cox's Bazar case did not emerge in complete isolation.
Days before the raid, reports emerged of Chinese-linked criminal networks operating from Dhaka's Uttara, Bashundhara and Nikunja areas, allegedly involved in online scams as well as illegal VoIP and gambling operations. Investigators identified Bangladeshi accomplices in some of these cases.
Bangladeshi investigators and the Chinese embassy have also raised concerns over a separate pattern involving Bangladeshi women being lured into fraudulent marriages with Chinese nationals.
None of these cases has been shown to be connected to the Cox's Bazar network. But they demonstrate that Chinese-linked criminal activity, and local facilitation of such activity, are already present in Bangladesh.
The danger is therefore not that Bangladesh suddenly becomes another Myanmar. It is that a series of apparently disconnected operations gradually acquire the infrastructure, local connections and protection necessary to become a durable criminal ecosystem. The Cox's Bazar raid offers Bangladesh an opportunity to find out which of these two possibilities it is facing.
The country also has weaknesses in monitoring foreign nationals. Police have reportedly noted that the Marina Beach Villas group never submitted the passport and visa documentation legally required for foreign guests to the district Special Branch, and that the resort owners did not notify police about leasing the property to foreign nationals — a gap in routine oversight, not merely a hidden crime.
Bangladesh's cybercrime-investigation capacity is another concern, though the scale of the shortfall needs some precision: the dedicated Cyber Crime Investigation Division under the CTTC has a very limited number of sanctioned officers relative to a fast-growing caseload.
The broader CTTC has other counterterrorism and transnational-crime responsibilities as well. Bangladesh's police leadership has repeatedly sought closer cooperation with the FBI over the past year, including a meeting as recently as last month, to strengthen cyber capabilities.
Modern scam operations require more than people making fraudulent calls. They depend on digital infrastructure, financial channels, recruitment systems, foreign-language capabilities and methods of concealing identities and moving proceeds.
A country can therefore become a useful base without ever developing the enormous fortified compounds seen in Cambodia or Myanmar.
Indeed, the greater risk for Bangladesh may be a smaller and more dispersed model.
The people behind the operation
One of the most important questions in Cox's Bazar is also one yet to be answered: who were the hundreds of people said to have been living across those four properties?
In Southeast Asia, many people found inside scam compounds have themselves been victims of trafficking. Recruited with promises of legitimate employment, they are sometimes confined and forced to participate in fraud under threats of violence.
Bangladeshi authorities have not yet established publicly whether any of those who fled Cox's Bazar were trafficked workers, willing participants, managers or members of the wider criminal network.
Nor is it clear how the operation managed to function for roughly five months without being detected.
That makes the local ecosystem surrounding the operation as important as the six arrests. Who arranged transport, food and equipment? Who handled local payments and documentation? Did property owners or employees know what was taking place? Did any local officials facilitate the operation?
The answers could determine whether the Cox's Bazar raid was an isolated case or evidence of something more established.
Bangladesh still has an advantage that countries such as Myanmar no longer possess: the problem may be visible before it becomes deeply embedded in the country's property market, financial networks and organised-crime structures.
It would be premature to call Bangladesh Asia's next scam capital. The country has nothing approaching the scale of the major compounds in Cambodia or Myanmar.
But the regional scam economy is changing. Its future may not depend on vast fortified compounds. Smaller operations in rented villas, hotels and apartments can be established quickly, dispersed across jurisdictions and abandoned when authorities close in.
The danger is therefore not that Bangladesh suddenly becomes another Myanmar. It is that a series of apparently disconnected operations gradually acquire the infrastructure, local connections and protection necessary to become a durable criminal ecosystem.
The Cox's Bazar raid offers Bangladesh an opportunity to find out which of these two possibilities it is facing.
If authorities wait until the answer is obvious, it may already be too late.
Jannatul Naym Pieal is a Dhaka-based writer, researcher and journalist. He can be reached at jn.pieal@gmail.com.
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