From TFA:

>The relative leniency of Muzahir’s compound, says Harvard’s Sims, likely stems from scam operations’ sense of total control in Laos’ Golden Triangle region—a zone of the country controlled largely by Chinese business interests that has become a host to crimes ranging from narcotics and organ sales to illegal wildlife trafficking. Even human trafficking victims who escape from a compound there, Sims points out, can be tracked down relatively easily thanks to Chinese organized crime’s influence over local law enforcement. “These guys don’t have to be held in a cell,” Sims says. “The whole place is a closed circuit.”