Scam gangs defrauded Asia-Pacific residents of at least US$88 billion in 2025, a United Nations office said on Tuesday, with transnational crime groups rapidly evolving tactics to stay ahead of law enforcement.

The losses from online scams, mostly investment fraud, are at least triple that from 2023, reflecting a ‘dramatic scaling’, the report says.

Networks that once operated within specific territories or illicit trades are increasingly expanding across multiple illegal markets while using shared services, said Delphine…