Is Starlink enabling Myanmar's scam centres?

Details: Vaughan O'Grady; Category: Satellite Networks; 14 October 2025; 7819 views

Myanmar is making telecoms news headlines yet again – and yet again this news is receiving attention well beyond the specialist press. This time it’s because the scam centre business that has burgeoned in the country is allegedly being enabled, in part, by satellite communications provider Starlink.

According to news service AFC, a powerful bipartisan committee in the US Congress is investigating how and whether Starlink is providing internet access to the scam centres.

It is alleged that large numbers of Starlink dishes began appearing on scam-centre roofs in Myanmar despite a crackdown in February, when China, Thailand and Myanmar forced pro-junta Myanmar militias who protect the centres into promising to eradicate them.

About 7,000 people – mostly Chinese citizens – working against their will, were freed from the call centre-style system, largely operating near the Thailand-Myanmar border. The UN says the system runs on forced labour and human trafficking.

But the scam centres are very big business. It was estimated in 2023 by the UN that up to 120,000 people were working in the Myanmar centres, which have been blamed for swindling billions of dollars from victims across the world, including Americans, who are said to be among the major targets of telephone, internet and social media cons originating in Southeast Asia. The gangs operating these frauds clearly have an incentive to keep going.

Indeed, AFP reports that an analysis of satellite images has found dozens of buildings going up or being altered in the largest of the compounds, KK Park, between March and September – after the supposed crackdown. Starlink may now have become the country’s biggest internet provider.

The junta that took power in a 2021 coup was in the telecoms news just over a week ago when Myanmar civil society groups Defend Myanmar Democracy and the Myanmar Internet Project announced plans to sue the Norwegian telecoms giant Telenor. They allege it shared customer data with the junta, thereby endangering the lives of civilians.