Scam networks defrauded residents across the Asia-Pacific region of at least $88 billion in 2025, according to a United Nations agency, as transnational criminal groups continue to adapt their methods to evade law enforcement.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a new report that Southeast Asia remains a major hub for cyberfraud, with largely Chinese-origin criminal syndicates expanding operations, exploiting corruption, using artificial intelligence, and diversifying their sources of income faster than authorities can respond.
The report estimated scam losses across East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand between $88.3 billion and $114.1 billion for 2025, a figure larger than the GDP of several of the nations in the region.
Criminal Networks Expand Globally
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.
People from at least 80 countries and territories have been identified in scam compounds across the region, with recruitment networks using transit hubs in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, according to UNODC.
Agentic AI
Scam operators are increasingly seeking recruits from outside Asia as they expand into new markets, UNODC said.
Recruitment advertisements linked to the industry’s communication channels have targeted people with German, Polish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French, Swedish, Norwegian and English language skills, it said.
Recent pressure from law enforcement in the region has displaced but not dismantled operations, UNODC said, with gangs relocating from countries like Myanmar and Laos to East Timor, Pacific Island states, and parts of Africa.
Syndicates engage in “jurisdiction shopping” to find places with weak governance and regulation, the report said, adding that corruption was the “primary enabler” of tech-driven organised crime in the region.
Beyond using generative AI to create content, criminal groups are expected to adopt agentic AI systems to more autonomously identify victims, conduct social-engineering campaigns and facilitate cryptocurrency theft and laundering, the report said.
The scam sector’s rapid growth has fuelled an ecosystem of ancillary criminal services, including money laundering, underground banking and data trading, it said.
“The scale and complexity of this expanding organised crime economy are outpacing existing responses, which were not structured to address such sophisticated criminal activity,” said Inshik Sim, a lead analyst at UNODC.
(With inputs from Reuters)
