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Agence France-Presse

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.
In the last two years, China, South Korea and Taiwan reported the largest losses from scams in the region, each losing billions of dollars, it added.
Scam franchising
The cyberscam industry has ballooned in Southeast Asia in recent years, with organised criminal groups initially mostly targeting Chinese speakers before widening their reach and targeting victims globally.
The wider criminal ecosystem of Southeast Asia – which includes the illegal drug trade, online scams, human trafficking, illicit banking and real estate investment – has also transformed over the last decade, according to the UNODC.
Organised criminals are “moving away from a fragmented system of locally rooted criminal syndicates towards an increasingly integrated, transnational, and technologically sophisticated criminal economy”, it said.

The shift has challenged conventional law enforcement and threatened regional governance, and economic and social stability.
“What we are seeing is a shift in which groups that stayed within their own geographic domain and criminal speciality are now operating across multiple illicit markets at once, relying on the same service streams,” UNODC regional representative Delphine Schantz said in a statement.
“Their operating model looks like corporate franchising. Imagine specialised departments for laundering money, trafficking people, smuggling migrants, and harvesting data, all plugged into the same, service-based interconnected network.”


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Cambodia

Asia-Pacific cyberscam victims lost up to US$114 billion last year: UN

A Thai soldier walks near small booths lined with acoustic foam used to make scam calls inside a compound in Cambodia’s O’Smach border town on February 2. Photo: Reuters

Thai soldiers stand guard inside a compound in O’Smach that the Thai military said was used for scam operations on March 6. Photo: Reuters

Thailand auctions US$18 million superyacht linked to supersized fraud

Atlas, a superyacht belonging to fugitive financier Benjamin Mauerberger, goes under the hammer on Tuesday. Photo: Anti-Money Laundering Office

Benjamin Mauerberger, also known as Ben Smith, is accused of cross-border investment fraud dating back to 2016. Photo: Handout

Indonesia deports 92 Chinese nationals, issues lifetime entry bans in anti-scam crackdown

Indonesian Immigration officials escort detained Chinese nationals in November 2025 after they were arrested over allegedly running cyber scams.  Photo: EPA

Chinese nationals are detained after a raid on a shophouse in Batam on August 29, 2023. Photo: AP

Japan’s new AI police chief takes on US$2 billion scam epidemic

A screengrab of a social media video shows Osaka prefecture’s new virtual AI police chief “AIko”. Photo: YouTube/OsakaPrefecturalPolice

Japanese police officers stand guard in Tokyo on June 21 as football fans gather after the national team’s victory in a World Cup match. Photo: Reuters

A burnt-out car is seen next to the buildings of a former scam complex in Cambodia earlier this year. Photo: Kyodo

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has instructed government employees to “demonstrate to the public the value of trustworthy AI”. Photo: Reuters

Hong Kong police arrest 61 in crackdown on phone scams as cases surge 46%

Chief Inspector Ho Ming-wai (right) says  3,766 phone scam cases were recorded from January to May this year. Photo: Karma Lo

Police say phone scams from January to May involved HK$720 million in losses. Photo: Getty Images

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Asia

Southeast Asia

East Asia

Australasia

The losses from online scams, mostly investment fraud, are at least triple that from 2023, reflecting a ‘dramatic scaling’, the report says


The losses from online scams, mostly investment fraud, are at least triple that from 2023, reflecting a ‘dramatic scaling’, the report says.


Asia-Pacific cyberscam victims lost up to US$114 billion last year: UN

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The losses from online scams, mostly investment fraud, are at least triple that from 2023, reflecting a ‘dramatic scaling’, the report says

The losses from online scams, mostly investment fraud, are at least triple that from 2023, reflecting a ‘dramatic scaling’, the report says