The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released its latest report revealing that victims of transnational online crimes in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand lost a combined total of up to 114.1 billion US dollars, or approximately 3.83 trillion baht, in 2025—an increase of threefold compared to 2023.
The UNODC report states that the financial damage from online fraud, especially investment scams and romance scams involving fake profiles, surged from between 18 billion and 37 billion US dollars in 2023 to approximately 88.3 billion to 114.1 billion US dollars (about 2.97 to 3.83 trillion baht) in 2025. The countries suffering the highest losses over the past two years are China, South Korea, and Taiwan, each losing several billion dollars.
The report further notes that over the past two years, China, South Korea, and Taiwan have been the areas with the highest financial damage from online scams in the region, each losing billions of US dollars.
Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia and Myanmar, has become a key hub for transnational criminal gangs that operate fortified camps using both willing labor and human trafficking victims to coerce global internet users into scams. Initially targeting primarily Chinese-speaking users, these operations have now expanded worldwide.
UNODC points out that over the past decade, the criminal ecosystem in Southeast Asia—including drug trafficking, online fraud, human trafficking, dark finance, and money laundering through real estate—has transformed from dispersed local groups into a "fully connected transnational criminal economy using advanced technology."
Delfine Chantze, the UNODC regional representative, revealed, "The modus operandi of criminal groups today resembles a franchise business model, with specialized divisions such as money laundering, human trafficking, labor smuggling, and data theft departments, all interconnected and sharing services within one network."
The severity of this problem heavily impacts regional security, governance, and economic stability, prompting governments including the United States, United Kingdom, and China to intensify efforts for serious crackdowns.
Over the past year, the US and UK have announced sanctions against individuals and companies involved with scammer networks and human trafficking, leading to arrests and extraditions of key call center gang leaders from Cambodia back to China for prosecution. However, the UN acknowledges that dealing with increasingly adaptive and complex criminal groups remains a major challenge for law enforcement worldwide.
/source/AFP