The cyber-fraud industry has flourished in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, with thousands of people trafficked into the industry. But even those who have managed to find a way out often cannot return home

Artillery fire thundered. Windows shattered. Roofs caved in. And thousands of foreign workers – many who had been tricked and trafficked into the vast cyber-fraud industry that has flourished in south-east Asia – fled.

For a brief moment, the regional crackdown appeared to mark a turning point in one of the world’s fastest-growing criminal industries, which has defrauded millions of people globally and generated billions of dollars for organised crime networks. Police and troops across Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar conducted mass raids to empty and demolish some of the region’s massive scam centres. But for many of those who escaped, freedom was only the beginning of another ordeal.

Months later, the consequences are still unfolding in Cambodia, where thousands of survivors from Africa, Latin America and Asia remain stranded without passports, money or any clear route home.

They have drifted to the capital, Phnom Penh, where they are sleeping rough and surviving hand to mouth. Thousands who have sought help have been placed in immigration detention centres. With those centres now overflowing, one former scam compound, Mango 2, has even been transformed into a detention centre, housing some of the very people it was meant to rescue.

Visa overstay fines that survivors began to accrue during captivity have mounted into the thousands of dollars, leaving those unable to pay trapped. Support from the decimated aid industry is rapidly running out. With limited options, some survivors have even begun accepting offers to return to the scam compounds they risked everything to escape, say experts.