SpaceX has disabled more than 2,500 Starlink internet terminals that were being used by cyber scam networks in Myanmar — one of the biggest corporate crackdowns yet on criminal abuse of satellite internet.
The Elon Musk–led company said it had “proactively identified and disabled” the devices operating in regions tied to online fraud along Myanmar’s remote and lawless border with Thailand.
A crackdown amid rising cybercrime
Despite recent raids and public crackdowns, online fraud operations have continued to thrive in Myanmar. Years of conflict and weak governance have turned much of the country’s borderlands into safe havens for organised crime.
According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, roughly 30 massive compounds now dot the Myanmar–Thailand border, each dedicated to online scams that collectively defraud victims—many of them Americans—of billions of dollars every year.
Lauren Dreyer, SpaceX’s vice president of business operations, said the company routinely investigates reports of misuse around the world.
“On the rare occasion we identify a violation, we take appropriate action, including working with law enforcement agencies around the world,” Dreyer wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
SpaceX did not specify when the disconnections took place, but the announcement came just days after Myanmar’s military junta reported seizing 30 Starlink receivers during a raid on one of the compounds.
“Pig butchering” scams and human trafficking
Southeast Asia’s cyberfraud industry has exploded in recent years. Criminal networks increasingly use AI tools and cryptocurrency markets to move money without detection.
Many of these groups specialise in “pig butchering” scams—long-term schemes in which scammers gain a victim’s trust before convincing them to invest or transfer large sums, effectively “fattening” them up before the final swindle.
However, the defrauders themselves are frequently victims too. Enlisted under dishonest possibilities of real jobs, thousands of workers from all over Asia are transferred into these compounds and required to work under vicious circumstances.
One worker, Kristalyn from the Philippines, confided to the media that she was trapped inside KK Park—a notorious scam complex near the border town of Myawaddy—when Starlink access was abruptly cut.
“Some of us are staying in abandoned houses, buildings, and even some are just staying on the streets trying to cross the border,” she said. “We have no food here. We have no money at all.”
Raids, politics, and a growing crisis
Since seizing power in 2021, Myanmar’s military junta has been fighting a nationwide civil war while struggling to control criminal syndicates operating under its nose.
Earlier this year, Thailand cut off electricity to several border areas hosting scam centres, which led to the release of some 7,000 workers and victims, yet experts say that’s only a small portion of those still trapped in the compounds.
Footage filmed in April inside KK Park showed manicured lawns and hotel-like buildings—an illusion that hides what anti-trafficking experts call one of the region’s biggest cybercrime hubs.
A source working in human trafficking prevention told CNN that despite the junta’s recent raid, “many victims [remain] trapped” and are “still being forced to scam.”
Global scrutiny mounts
The crisis has drawn growing international attention. The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee has launched an inquiry into Starlink’s alleged use in Myanmar’s scam centres, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warns that online fraud in Southeast Asia is expanding “at an unprecedented rate.”
Jason Tower, a regional crime expert with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said Myanmar’s junta is facing mounting pressure to act.
He said the raid on KK Park was more of a publicity stunt than a crackdown and that it’s still business as usual for dozens of compounds along the Moei River.
As Southeast Asian leaders prepare to meet in Malaysia later this week for an ASEAN summit, the region’s cybercrime epidemic is expected to be high on the agenda.
For now, SpaceX’s move to cut off the Starlink terminals underscores a growing reality — even tech companies are being pulled into the front lines of the global fight against cybercrime.
