Digital investigations. Human stories.

Scam compounds, where people are forced to conduct online fraud targeting victims globally, have emerged as one of the most significant human rights crises in Southeast Asia. Myanmar Witness has been monitoring the compounds since the 2021 military coup, identifying more than 137 suspected sites across Myanmar and the wider region through satellite imagery analysis, victim testimonies, missing persons reports, and incident records.

From AI-generated videos imagining London “taken over” by immigrant communities, to TikTok videos depicting a walk through central London requiring military-style gear, CIR has documented a wave of online disinformation portraying London as a city “in decline”. The content collected spans five platforms, overlaps with far-right extremist ideology, and is reaching international audiences.

In late April, two opposing armed groups staged a series of attacks in eastern DRC, leaving at least 69 dead and prompting an intervention by MONUSCO, the UN’s peacekeeping force in the region. These groups are just two among an estimated 120 armed actors currently operating in the region. But what drives such a fragmented picture? To answer this question, we spoke to some of our expert investigators for insights into the complex array of belligerents in eastern DRC.