UN Warns Cybercrime Syndicates in Southeast Asia Expanding Globally, Threatening Irreversible Spillover

Cybercrime syndicates operating multi-billion-dollar scam operations across Southeast Asia are expanding their reach globally, building links from Ireland to Mexico, and potentially triggering an irreversible spillover effect, according to a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Bloomberg reports.

Despite recent law enforcement crackdowns, these transnational criminal networks are infiltrating and scaling up in other regions, particularly the Pacific, Africa, South America, and South Asia.

The UNODC report, published Monday, reveals that these operations rely on trafficked workers from dozens of countries and are largely based in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. The growth is fueled by the rise of new, illicit online marketplaces, particularly cryptocurrency-integrated platforms, which are used for money laundering and connecting illegal actors worldwide. The agency estimates that these scam operations generate tens of billions of dollars annually.

“The dispersal of these sophisticated criminal networks within areas of weakest governance has attracted new players, fueled corruption, and enabled the industry to continue to scale,” the report stated. This spillover effect has allowed criminal groups to “freely pick, choose, and move jurisdictions, operations, and value as needed, with the resulting situation rapidly outpacing the capacity of governments to contain it.”

While Southeast Asian governments have intensified crackdowns on scam compounds along shared borders, these industrial-scale operations have adapted by relocating to more remote areas within or beyond the region or pivoting to online platforms. The report highlights a growing trend of using Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider, to circumvent government crackdowns on illegal cross-border connections and reach remote locations without reliable internet access.

The UN agency estimates that countries in East and Southeast Asia lost up to $37 billion to cyber fraud in 2023. US authorities reported billions of dollars in losses the same year from crypto-related scams and “pig butchering” schemes, where fraudsters gain the trust of victims before defrauding them.

The report also details how Southeast Asian crime syndicates are actively strengthening collaborations with major criminal networks around the world, including South American drug cartels, the Italian mafia, and the Irish mob. One example cited is a Chinese-linked network that assisted Mexican drug cartels in laundering money and reselling foreign currencies to overseas buyers within underground banking markets.