OCCRP | Documents and photos show the inside of apparent scam centers in Palau. They’re very different from the photos of bright blue ocean waters, sandy beaches, mountains, and coral reefs that come up when doing a web search on palau.

When police raided hotel sites in January 2025, they encountered scenes that looked much like those inside the scam compounds in Cambodia, Myanmar, and the Philippines: crowded rooms filled with young foreigners working on computers. Some of the workers told authorities they hadn’t left the building for years.

According to Erin West of Operation Shamrock, the isolation is typical of pig-butchering operations.

“That people weren't allowed to leave for months or years is insanity. That is a crazy amount of time that they’re stuck there, and it’s very consistent with what we're seeing in other places.” — Erin West, Operation Shamrock

Workers came from countries including China, Malaysia, and Vietnam with work visas sponsored by construction and IT companies. Those companies were owned by Palau’s political and business elites, including the country’s former vice president and the owner of the hotels. Also on the hotel owner’s resume: He was on the board of Palau’s banking regulator in 2025.

According to Hunter Anson, the chief information security officer at Palau’s Ministry of Finance:

One of the operations brought in at least $200,000 a month, which was funneled offshore using cryptocurrency.
Scam operations are increasing in Palau, which has few resources and “zero cybercrime laws or regulations.”
One of the centers operated undetected for about two-and-a-half years.

Forensic analysis of devices in the raid revealed “a structured, transnational criminal organization operating under the cover of multiple IT and construction companies,” according to the article. The sites were part of a network running illegal online gambling and cryptocurrency fraud.

The documents found in the raid included instructions in Chinese outlining tactics to manipulate victims.

The scammers allegedly deposited worthless digital tokens into the crypto wallets of more than 2 million Tron platform users. When victims attempted to redeem the tokens, their personal data was extracted and their accounts were drained, according to a cyber forensics report produced by Palau’s Financial Intelligence Unit.

It’s unclear whether authorities are actively investigating the centers: The national agency responsible for criminal investigations did not respond to OCCRP's queries.

Read the full article: Foreign Workers, Local Sponsors: Inside Palau's Hotel Scam Centers

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