'Cancer' of billion-dollar cyberscam industry spreading globally: U.N.
FILE PHOTO: Multinational victims of scam centers, who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar, stand on a vessel floating towards the Thai side of border via Moei River in Phop Phra District, Tak province, Thailand February 12, 2025. REUTERS/Krit Phromsakla Na Sakolnakorn/File Photo
By Poppy McPherson
Asian crime syndicates behind the multibillion-dollar cyberscam industry are expanding globally including to South America and Africa, as raids in Southeast Asia fail to contain their activities, the United Nations said in a report on Monday.
Criminal networks that emerged in Southeast Asia in recent years, opening sprawling compounds housing tens of thousands of workers, many trafficked and forced to scam victims around the world, have evolved into a sophisticated global industry, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said.
Even as Southeast Asian governments have intensified a crackdown, syndicates have moved within and beyond the region, the agency said, adding that a 'potentially irreversible spillover has taken place... leaving criminal groups free to pick, choose, and move... as needed'.
'It spreads like a cancer,' said John Wojcik, a regional analyst for UNODC. 'Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear; they simply migrate.'
Conservative estimates indicate there are hundreds of large-scale scam farms around the world generating tens of billions of dollars in annual profits, the UNODC said. The agency called on countries to work together and intensify efforts to disrupt the gangs' financing.
'The regional cyberfraud industry... has outpaced other transnational crimes, given that it is easily scalable and able to reach millions of potential victims online, with no need to move or traffic illicit goods across borders,' said Wojcik.
The United States alone reported more than $5.6 billion in losses to cryptocurrency scams in 2023, including more than $4 million in so-called pig-butchering scams or romance scams designed to extort money from often elderly and vulnerable people.
In recent months, authorities from China, where many of the gangs originate, Thailand and Myanmar have led a crackdown on scam operations in lawless areas of the Thai-Myanmar border, with Thailand cutting power, fuel and internet supply to areas housing scam compounds.
But syndicates have adapted, shifting operations between 'the most remote, vulnerable, and underprepared parts of Southeast Asia', especially in Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia, and beyond, exploiting jurisdictions with weak governance and high rates of corruption, the UNODC said.
Raids in parts of Cambodia where the industry is most visible 'led to significant expansion in more remote locations', including the country's western Koh Kong province, as well as areas bordering Thailand and Vietnam, the U.N. agency said.
New sites also continue to be developed in Myanmar, it added, a country in the throes of an expanding conflict since the military seized power four years ago.
Spokespeople for the Cambodian government and Myanmar junta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Syndicates have expanded into South America, the U.N. agency said, seeking to enhance money laundering and underground banking partnerships with South American drug cartels.
They are increasingly establishing operations in Africa, including in Zambia, Angola, and Namibia, and in Eastern Europe including Georgia, the agency said.
Gangs have also rapidly diversified their workforce, recruiting people from dozens of nationalities, according to the agency, reflecting how the industry scams targets across the globe and has sought to evade anti-trafficking efforts.
Citizens of more than 50 countries – from Brazil to Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan - were rescued during recent crackdowns on the Thai-Myanmar border.
The international community is at a 'critical inflection point,' the UNODC said, urging that failure to address the problem would have 'unprecedented consequences for Southeast Asia that reverberate globally'.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Today
17 hours ago
- Japan Today
Islamic State reactivating fighters, eying comeback in Syria and Iraq
FILE PHOTO: A guard looks at Islamic State fighters through bars at al-Sina'a prison in Hasakah, Syria, January 18, 2025. REUTERS/Orhan Qereman/File Photo By Ahmed Rasheed, Timour Azhari and Michael Georgy Middle East leaders and their Western allies have been warning that Islamic State could exploit the fall of the Assad regime to stage a comeback in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where the extremist group once imposed a reign of terror over millions. Islamic State (IS) has been attempting just that, according to more than 20 sources, including security and political officials from Syria, Iraq, the U.S. and Europe, as well as diplomats in the region. The group has started reactivating fighters in both countries, identifying targets, distributing weapons and stepping up recruitment and propaganda efforts, the sources said. So far, the results of these efforts appear limited. Security operatives in Syria and Iraq, who have been monitoring IS for years, told Reuters they foiled at least a dozen major plots this year. A case in point came in December, the month Syria's Bashar Assad was toppled. As rebels were advancing on Damascus, IS commanders holed up near Raqqa, former capital of their self-declared caliphate, dispatched two envoys to Iraq, five Iraqi counter-terrorism officials told Reuters. The envoys carried verbal instructions to the group's followers to launch attacks. But they were captured at a checkpoint while traveling in northern Iraq on December 2, the officials said. Eleven days later, Iraqi security forces, acting on information from the envoys, tracked a suspected IS suicide bomber to a crowded restaurant in the northern town of Daquq using his cell phone, they said. The forces shot the man dead before he could detonate an explosives belt, they said. The foiled attack confirmed Iraq's suspicions about the group, said Colonel Abdul Ameer al-Bayati, of the Iraqi Army's 8th Division, which is deployed in the area. 'Islamic State elements have begun to reactivate after years of lying low, emboldened by the chaos in Syria,' he said. Still, the number of attacks claimed by IS has dropped since Assad's fall. IS claimed responsibility for 38 attacks in Syria in the first five months of 2025, putting it on track for a little over 90 claims this year, according to data from SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militants' activities online. That would be around a third of last year's claims, the data shows. In Iraq, where IS originated, the group claimed four attacks in the first five months of 2025, versus 61 total last year. Syria's government, led by the country's new Islamist leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, did not answer questions about IS activities. Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra told Reuters in January the country was developing its intelligence-gathering efforts, and its security services would address any threat. A U.S. defense official and a spokesperson for Iraq's prime minister said IS remnants in Syria and Iraq have been dramatically weakened, unable to control territory since a U.S.-led coalition and its local partners drove them from their last stronghold in 2019. The Iraqi spokesperson, Sabah al-Numan, credited pre-emptive operations for keeping the group in check. The coalition and partners hammered militant hideouts with airstrikes and raids after Assad's fall. Such operations captured or killed 'terrorist elements,' while preventing them from regrouping and carrying out operations, Numan said. Iraq's intelligence operations have also become more precise, through drones and other technology, he added. At its peak between 2014 and 2017, IS held sway over roughly a third of Syria and Iraq, where it imposed its extreme interpretation of Islamic sharia law, gaining a reputation for shocking brutality. None of the officials who spoke with Reuters saw a danger of that happening again. But they cautioned against counting the group out, saying it has proven a resilient foe, adept at exploiting a vacuum. Some local and European officials are concerned that foreign fighters might be traveling to Syria to join jihadi groups. For the first time in years, intelligence agencies tracked a small number of suspected foreign fighters coming from Europe to Syria in recent months, two European officials told Reuters, though they could not say whether IS or another group recruited them. EXPLOITING DIVISIONS The IS push comes at a delicate time for Sharaa, as he attempts to unite a diverse country and bring former rebel groups under government control after 13 years of civil war. U.S. President Donald Trump's surprise decision last month to lift sanctions on Syria was widely seen as a win for the Syrian leader, who once led a branch of al Qaeda that battled IS for years. But some Islamist hardliners criticized Sharaa's efforts to woo Western governments, expressing concern he might acquiesce to U.S. demands to expel foreign fighters and normalize relations with Israel. Seizing on such divides, IS condemned the meeting with Trump in a recent issue of its online news publication, al-Naba, and called on foreign fighters in Syria to join its ranks. At a May 14 meeting in Saudi Arabia, Trump asked Sharaa to help prevent an IS resurgence as the U.S. begins a troop consolidation in Syria it says could cut its roughly 2,000-strong military presence by half this year. The U.S. drawdown has heightened concern among allies that IS might find a way to free some 9,000 fighters and their family members, including foreign nationals, held at prisons and camps guarded by the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). There have been at least two attempted jailbreaks since Assad's fall, the SDF has said. Trump and President Tayyip Erdogan of neighboring Turkey want Sharaa's government to assume responsibility for these facilities. Erdogan views the main Kurdish factions as a threat to his country. But some regional analysts question whether Damascus has the manpower needed. Syrian authorities have also been grappling with attacks by suspected Assad loyalists, outbreaks of deadly sectarian violence, Israeli airstrikes and clashes between Turkish-backed groups and the SDF, which controls about a quarter of the country. 'The interim government is stretched thin from a security perspective. They just do not have the manpower to consolidate control in the entire country,' said Charles Lister, who heads the Syria program at the Middle East Institute, a U.S. think tank. Responding to a request for comment, a State Department spokesperson said it is critical for countries to repatriate detained nationals from Syria and shoulder a greater share of the burden for the camps' security and running costs. The U.S. defense official said Washington remains committed to preventing an IS resurgence, and its vetted Syrian partners remain in the field. The U.S. will 'vigilantly monitor' Sharaa's government, which has been 'saying and doing the right things' so far, the official added. Three days after Trump's meeting with Sharaa, Syria announced it had raided IS hideouts in the country's second city, Aleppo, killing three militants, detaining four and seizing weapons and uniforms. The U.S. has exchanged intelligence with Damascus in limited cases, another U.S. defense official and two Syrian officials told Reuters. The news agency could not determine whether it did so in the Aleppo raids. The coalition is expected to wrap up operations in Iraq by September. But the second U.S. official said Baghdad privately expressed interest in slowing down the withdrawal of some 2,500 American troops from Iraq when it became apparent that Assad would fall. A source familiar with the matter confirmed the request. The White House, Baghdad and Damascus did not respond to questions about Trump's plans for U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. REACTIVATING SLEEPER CELLS The United Nations estimates IS, also known as ISIS or Daesh, has 1,500 to 3,000 fighters in the two countries. But its most active branches are in Africa, the SITE data shows. The U.S. military believes the group's secretive leader is Abdulqadir Mumin, who heads the Somalia branch, a senior defence official told reporters in April. Still, SITE's director, Rita Katz, cautioned against seeing the drop in IS attacks in Syria as a sign of weakness. 'Far more likely that it has entered a restrategizing phase,' she said. Since Assad's fall, IS has been activating sleeper cells, surveilling potential targets and distributing guns, silencers and explosives, three security sources and three Syrian political officials told Reuters. It has also moved fighters from the Syrian desert, a focus of coalition airstrikes, to cities including Aleppo, Homs and Damascus, according to the security sources. "Of the challenges we face, Daesh is at the top of the list," Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab told state-owned Ekhbariya TV last week. In Iraq, aerial surveillance and intelligence sources on the ground have picked up increased IS activity in the northern Hamrin Mountains, a longtime refuge, and along key roads, Ali al-Saidi, an advisor to Iraqi security forces, told Reuters. Iraqi officials believe IS seized large stockpiles of weapons left behind by Assad's forces and worry some could be smuggled into Iraq. Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said Baghdad was in contact with Damascus about IS, which he told Reuters in January was growing and spreading into more areas. "We hope that Syria, in the first place, will be stable, and Syria will not be a place for terrorists," he said, 'especially ISIS terrorists." © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Yomiuri Shimbun
18 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Northern Ireland Hit by Third Night of Violence but Main Flashpoint Calmer
Reuters A riot police officer stands guard while demonstrators gather as riots continue in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, June 11, 2025. BALLYMENA, Northern Ireland, June 11 (Reuters) – Violence erupted in different parts of Northern Ireland for the third successive night on Wednesday, with masked youths starting a fire in a leisure centre but unrest in the primary flashpoint of Ballymena was notably smaller in scale. Hundreds of masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in Ballymena, a town of 30,000 people located 45 kilometres (28 miles) from Belfast, on Tuesday night in what police condemned as 'racist thuggery.' The violence flared on Monday after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court earlier that day, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the town. The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported. Police are investigating the damaging of properties on Monday and Tuesday in Ballymena, which has a relatively large migrant population, as racially-motivated hate crimes. Two Filipino families told Reuters they fled their home in Ballymena on Tuesday night after fearing for their safety when their car was set on fire outside the house. A few dozen masked youths threw some rocks, fireworks and petrol bombs at police after officers in riot gear and armoured vans blocked roads in the town on Wednesday evening. Police deployed water cannon against the crowd for the second successive night but the clashes were nothing like the previous night that left 17 officers injured and led to five arrests. Much of the crowd had left the streets before midnight. A small number of riot police were also in the town of Larne 30 kilometres west where masked youths smashed the windows of a leisure centre before starting fires in the lobby, BBC footage showed. Swimming classes were taking place when bricks were thrown through the windows and staff had to barricade themselves in before running out the back door, a local Alliance Party lawmaker, Danny Donnelly, told the BBC. Northern Ireland's Communities Minister Gordon Lyons had earlier posted on Facebook that a number of people had been temporarily moved to the leisure centre following the disturbances in Ballymena, before then being moved out of Larne. The comments drew sharp criticism from other political parties for identifying a location used to shelter families seeking refuge from anti-immigrant violence. Lyons condemned the attacks on the centre. Police said youths also set fires at a roundabout in the town of Newtownabbey, a flashpoint for sectarian violence that sporadically flares up in the British-run region 27 years after a peace deal largely ended three decades of bloodshed. Debris was also set alight at a barricade in Coleraine, the Belfast Telegraph reported. The British and Irish governments as well as local politicians have condemned the violence.
Japan Today
a day ago
- Japan Today
Disorder breaks out in Northern Ireland for third straight night
By Conor Humphries Public disorder broke out in different parts of Northern Ireland for the third successive night on Wednesday, as rioters attacked police with petrol bombs in the main flashpoint of Ballymena and a fire was started at a leisure centre in the town of Larne. Hundreds of masked rioters injured police and set homes and cars on fire in the town of Ballymena, 45 kilometers from Belfast, during the previous two nights in what police condemned as "racist thuggery." Riot police and armoured vans blocked roads in Ballymena on Wednesday evening as a crowd of hundreds watched on. About two dozen masked youths threw some rocks, fireworks and petrol bombs at police, a Reuters witness said. Police warned the crowd to disperse immediately and deployed water cannon against them for the second successive night. Riot police were also in Larne where masked youths smashed the leisure centre's windows before starting fires in the lobby, BBC footage showed. Swimming classes were taking place when bricks were thrown through the windows and staff had to barricade themselves in before running out the back door, a local Alliance Party lawmaker, Danny Donnelly, told the BBC. "There is absolutely no excuse for what has taken place in Larne and it must be condemned," Northern Ireland's Communities Minister Gordon Lyons, a Democratic Unionist Party representative for the area, told Cool FM radio. Police said youths were setting fires at a roundabout in the town of Newtownabbey, a flashpoint for sectarian violence that sporadically flares up in the British-run region 27 years after a peace deal largely ended three decades of bloodshed. Debris was also set alight at a barricade in Coleraine, the Belfast Telegraph reported. The violence initially erupted after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court on Monday, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in Ballymena. The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported. Police are investigating the damaging of properties in Ballymena, which has a relatively large migrant population, as racially-motivated hate crimes. Two Filipino families told Reuters they fled their home in the town on Tuesday night after fearing for their safety when their car was set on fire outside the house. The British and Irish governments as well as local politicians have condemned the violence. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
