GENEVA, July 28 (Reuters): The U.N. migration agency on Tuesday warned of a dramatic increase in the number of people forced into working in Asian scam compounds, saying people from more than 80 countries have been lured in through social media, with some being sexually abused.

Huge scam centres employing as many as 300,000 workers across Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have emerged to deploy online schemes to defraud often older individuals in the West, the International Organization for Migration said.

But a ⁠significant portion of those were themselves tricked into employment, the U.N. agency said, describing fake job advertisements offering lucrative work contracts for those with strong English skills and a college education.

Once duped, they are stripped of their documents and forced to carry out online scam operations amid threats and violence, IOM said. Many suffer stigma and debt as well as trauma after sexual abuse or bouts of solitary confinement, Amy Pope, director general of the IOM, said.

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