According to the United Nations Office against Drugs and Crime (UNUD, known in English as UNODC), criminal networks arising in Southeast Asia in recent years, with the opening of complex complex extensions that house tens of thousands of workers, many of them victims of trafficking and forced to cheat victims around the world, have evolved into a sophisticated world industry.
Although the Governments of Southeast Asia have intensified repression, criminal groups have moved inside and outside the region, said the agency, adding that there has been a “potentially irreversible overflow (…) leaving the criminal groups freedom to choose, choose and move (…) according to their needs.”
“It extends as a cancer,” said Benedikt Hofmann, an interim regional representative of the UNUD for Southeast and Pacific Asia. “The authorities treat it in an area, but the roots never disappear; they simply migrate.”
Conservative estimates indicate that there are hundreds of large -scale fraud centers worldwide that generate tens of billions of dollars in annual benefits, said the UNUDD. The agency called for countries to work together and intensify their efforts to interrupt the financing of the bands.
“The regional Cyberfraude industry (…) has surpassed other transnational crimes, since it is easily scalable and capable of reaching millions of potential victims on the Internet, without the need to move or traffic with illicit goods through borders,” said Wojcik.
In the United States alone, more than 5.6 billion dollars were recorded in losses for scams related to cryptocurrencies in 2023, including more than 4 million dollars in the so -called scams of trusted or loving cultivation designed to extort often old and vulnerable people.
