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South China Morning Post
5 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Can Southeast Asia contain growing threat of cyber scams?
As Southeast Asian leaders focus on navigating trade tariffs and the US-China rivalry, a growing threat to the region's economic resilience is being largely overlooked: the rise of billion-dollar cyber scam centres operating with impunity. These operations not only endanger financial stability and investor confidence, but are also eroding national sovereignty – all while exploiting the region's young, tech-savvy populations who are increasingly dependent on digital services. The scale of the problem was laid bare earlier when US authorities imposed financial restrictions on entities in Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines accused of enabling large-scale cyber scams. Officials alleged that billions of dollars had been laundered through loosely regulated digital payment networks and bulk IP infrastructure, facilitating schemes ranging from crypto investment fraud to hacks attributed to sanctioned state-linked groups. While the moves were hailed as a regulatory breakthrough, analysts warn it is a temporary win at best as the criminal networks behind these scams are highly mobile and adaptable, often resurfacing under different guises after enforcement actions. 08:49 The Chinese criminal gangs behind Southeast Asia's scam centres The Chinese criminal gangs behind Southeast Asia's scam centres According to an April report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 'it is now increasingly clear that a potentially irreversible spillover has taken place in Southeast Asia, leaving criminal groups free to pick, choose, and move jurisdictions, operations, and value as needed.'
Times
25-05-2025
- Times
Cambodian politicians ‘profit from online scammers'
Politicians in Cambodia are supporting and profiting from criminal online scam centres that use trafficked forced labour to trick lonely people in Europe and America, a new report has shown. Its findings support those of United Nations investigators who recently said scam centres continue to grow and spread 'like a cancer' — despite the recent closure of sites in Myanmar and public promises to crack down on them by southeast Asian governments — putting at risk both the people forced to work there and the victims they cheat. 'Cambodia is likely the absolute global epicentre of next-gen transnational fraud in 2025 and is certainly the country most primed for explosive growth going forward,' says the report by the Humanity Research Consultancy (HRC), which campaigns against human trafficking. 'Cambodian state institutions systematically and insidiously support and protect the criminal networks involved in transnational fraud and related human trafficking.' The country is thought to generate as much as $19 billion a year from the scamming industry, equivalent to about 60 per cent of its GDP, eclipsing by far its largest formal sector, the garment and textiles industry. The 'scamdemic' emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic when casinos, deprived of gamblers, encouraged their criminal operators to switch to online scams. They recruited people from across the world, some of whom work willingly and others who are hoodwinked with promises of respectable work and forced into staying with threats and physical violence. Many scam operations engage in what is called 'pig butchering', where lowly operatives, often victims of human trafficking, 'fatten up' their marks by winning their confidence, only for them to be passed on to more senior criminals for 'slaughter', meaning transfers of money, often in the form of untraceable cryptocurrency. Often, the initial approach is made on dating apps, by scammers impersonating available young women to get the phone numbers of lonely western men. 'Just about anyone in the world could fall victim to either the human trafficking or the online scams carried out through these criminal hubs,' said Jürgen Stock, who was the secretary-general of Interpol from 2014-24. Cambodia is likely to host the largest share of the industry, which is concentrated in southeast Asia — Myanmar and Laos also participate significantly. The 'cybercriminal labour force' in the region is estimated to be more than 350,000 people, and generates as much as an estimated $75 billion a year — half of the total economic activity in those host countries. According to the HRC report, by Jacob Sims, a security expert affiliated with Harvard University, senior members of the ruling Cambodian People's Party are deeply involved in the scam industry. Hun To, a cousin of the prime minister, Hun Manet, sits on the board of directors of Huione Group, whose illicit online marketplaces are 'a key piece of infrastructure driving cyber-enabled fraud', according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The deputy prime and interior minister, Sar Sokha, was an investor in the construction of one of the largest scam compounds in the country. 'It spreads like a cancer,' Benedikt Hofmann of UNODC said. 'Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear; they simply migrate.' A Ministry of Interior spokesman, Touch Sokhak, rejected the report, calling it politically motivated, while asserting that it was 'a tool to blame smaller countries that are technologically weak'.
