A recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) stated that .
According to Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, these crime syndicates are constantly evolving.
“This is organized crime with a really high degree of sophistication and the continued adoption of new technology,” Hofmann told DW. “The industry is growing and becoming more complex almost on a daily basis.”
Earlier this year, , and Laos all , mostly located in border regions. The authorities shut down multiple sites and who had been.
Despite these high-profile crackdowns, Hofmann said that many operations were simply relocated to other, more secluded, parts of the Mekong region.
Crime networks steal billions upon billions every year
The cyberscamming industry in Southeast Asia grew out of the massive Chinese offshore gambling syndicates. This means that offenders rely on pre-existing criminal infrastructure which includes established patterns of bribes for government officials and routines for money laundering.
According to Jason Tower, who at the time of the interview was the country director for the Burma program of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP)*, these criminal networks have recently shifted to more complex scams. For example, in a process colloquially known as “pig butchering,” fraudsters build trust, often through romantic relationships, and then lure their victims into fake cryptocurrency investments and other investment schemes.
“Such crimes are so complicated and transnational in nature that law enforcement needs to be able to work across borders if they want to be successful in cracking down on it,” Tower said. “Unfortunately a lot of countries, including even the US and in Europe, are still trying to understand the problem.”
A USIP report estimates that cyber scamming operations in Mekong countries likely generate as much as $44 billion (€39.3 billion) a year — nearly 40% of the combined formal GDP of Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
Tower warns that “billions and billions of dollars” are going into the pockets of criminals “who are undermining governments and driving conflict in places like Myanmar,” a .
Singapore takes a stand against scammers
One nation that appears to be standing up to cyberscams is Singapore. Over the past couple of years, the city-state has lost billions to scammers. It has since passed laws meant to protect citizens and make it easier to track and cancel fraudulent bank transactions and pursue offenders.
is one of the wealthiest and most digitally connected countries in Asia, making it an especially tempting target for criminal networks. Also, Singaporeans mostly speak Mandarin Chinese and English, which are also two of the main languages spoken by scammers.
“In Singapore, everything is digital,” said Allison Pytlak, senior fellow and director of the cyber program at the Stimson Center, a non-profit, non-partisan institution that focuses on international security and peace. “This has made them more at risk of scams but also means that they have more options available to try and protect their citizens from scams.”
The island nation has now implemented protective measures such as awareness campaigns, police hotlines and even an app that protects users from scam calls.
“The government will continue to respond aggressively to this challenge,” Sun Xueling, Singapore’s minister of Home Affairs and Social and Family Development, pledged in parliament in March.
She also warned the lawmakers that the criminals were “well-resourced, adept at using technology, and constantly evolve their tactics to evade our defenses.”
UN pushing for cross-border cooperation
The UNODC has been working with governments and law enforcement agencies in the region on multilateral initiatives that include joint operations, intelligence sharing and capacity-building programs.
“In the past, countries in the region did not see [scam centers] as a shared priority,” said UN official Hofmann. “This is changing.”
At a meeting of in January, leaders promised action and listed cybercrimes and online scams as major threats alongside human trafficking, drugs and money laundering.
But Pytlak from the Stimson Center warns that ASEAN is merely “a cooperation bloc with countries having autonomy under it.”
“This means that the bloc has little influence over issues related to scam centers, mainly jurisdiction or law enforcement,” she said.
On a more positive note, Pytlak added that there is a growing interest in the US and Canada to cooperate with countries in Southeast Asia against scamming syndicates, as many victims of online scams live in Western countries.
* In March 2025, the congressionally established US Institute of Peace (USIP) was essentially closed down by the Trump administration and the website taken down. USIP reports and research mentioned in this article were accessed through web-archiving platforms.
Edited by: Darko Janjevic
The post Why are scammers still thriving in Southeast Asia? appeared first on Deutsche Welle.
