Networks that once operated within specific territories or illicit trades are increasingly expanding across multiple illegal markets while using shared services, said Delphine Schantz, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. 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...
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