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BANGKOK: Victims of transnational online scams in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand lost up to $114.1 billion last year, a UN report said on Tuesday, with estimated losses at least tripling from 2023.
Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia and Myanmar, has emerged as a regional hub for crime syndicates running fake romance and cryptocurrency investment schemes in which scammers — some willing, others trafficked — often working in fortified compounds defraud internet users around the world.
Online scams, mostly from investment fraud, across the specified regions cost victims an estimated $88.3 billion to $114.1 billion last year, according to the new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The combined losses far exceed the $18 billion-$37 billion estimated to have been lost in 2023, and reflect “the dramatic scaling of this criminal economy”, it said.
China, South Korea and Taiwan reported the largest losses from scams in the region in the past two years, each losing billions of dollars, the report said.
