Crime groups across the Asia-Pacific have been harnessing AI, exploiting corruption and providing online infrastructure for hard-to-detect scam operations, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has warned.
South-East Asia’s expanding cyber scam industry cost victims across East and South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand an estimated $88.3 bln to $114.1 bln in 2025, the last reporting year in the UNODC release.
UNODC said criminal groups that once specialised in separate activities have become part of interconnected networks, sharing infrastructure used for cyber fraud, human trafficking, migrant smuggling and financial crime.
«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,» commented Delphine Schantz, the UNODC representative for South-East Asia and the Pacific.
Although cyber scams are expanding rapidly, drug trafficking remains one of the region’s most lucrative criminal markets. UNODC estimated the annual sales of methamphetamine, ketamine and heroin across the region at between $75 bln and $109.7 bln.
Organised crime across the region is increasingly interested in illegal online gambling, online child sexual exploitation, tobacco crime and firearms trafficking, UNODC researchers warned.
The report says gaming-style features are making online gambling more attractive to younger users, while advances in artificial intelligence and deepfake technology are helping criminals automate fraud on a larger scale.
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