PHNOM PENH: Online scams and fraud have become a massive transnational threat costing East Asia, South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand up to US$114 billion each year, with losses rising rapidly, a senior UN official said on Wednesday (Sept 23).
Speaking at day one of the International Conference on Combating Online Scams in Phnom Penh on September 23, Delphine Schantz, regional representative for South-East Asia and the Pacific at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC-ROSEAP), stressed that the crime affects people across all parts of society and undermines trust in institutions and economic activity.
“In our latest Transnational Organised Crime Threat Assessment in South-East Asia, we estimate that scams losses in East Asia, South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand now amount to up to US$114 billion dollars per year, and this number is growing rapidly,” she said.
She noted that these vast proceeds not only erode the rule of law but are reinvested to expand criminal operations even further.
Schantz described how fragmented, locally rooted syndicates in South-East Asia have merged into a sophisticated, tech-driven transnational criminal economy that operates like corporate franchising, with specialised units for money laundering, human trafficking and data harvesting.
She said criminals are increasingly leveraging and even developing new technologies, including cryptocurrencies, to outpace conventional law enforcement.
She praised Cambodia as a positive example of the growing regional response.
“Cambodia is a good example of this. Over the past months, we have seen an increase in law enforcement operations to shut down scam operations. The creation of the Commission for Combating Technology-enabled Scams (CCTC) sends a very important signal, and today’s conference is another step in showing openness to cooperate,” she said.
While welcoming these advances, Schantz called for stronger joint understanding of crime trends, coherent regulatory frameworks, better digital evidence handling, closer interagency and private-sector cooperation, and sustained political commitment to ensure efforts produce lasting impact rather than simply displacing the problem. - The Phnom Penh Post/ANN
