Victims of transnational online scams in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand lost up to US$114.1 billion last year, a UN report said on Tuesday, with estimated losses at least tripling from 2023.
Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia and Myanmar, has emerged as a regional hub for crime syndicates running fake romance and cryptocurrency investment schemes in which scammers – some willing, others trafficked – defraud internet users around the world, often from fortified compounds.
But under pressure from several countries, including the United States, Britain and China, authorities in the region say they are cracking down on the illicit industry.
Several alleged scam network bosses were extradited from Cambodia to China in the last year, after Washington and London sanctioned firms and individuals accused of operating far-reaching cyberscams fuelled by human trafficking.
Online scams, mostly from investment fraud, across the specified regions cost victims an estimated US$88.3 billion to US$114.1 billion last year, according to the new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The combined losses far exceeded the US$18 billion to US$37 billion estimated to have been lost in 2023, and reflected “the dramatic scaling of this criminal economy”, the report said.
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