The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released a report that transnational crime syndicates based in Southeast Asia have evolved into global cybercrime powerhouses. The Inflection Point 2025 Report warns that these criminal syndicates, spreading into India, Africa and South Asia are driving fraud, underground banking, and illicit digital markets.
The report details that these networks which rely heavily on trafficked labour and unregulated digital finance systems, now operate as organised enterprises, committing frauds globally. The report also warns that the criminal networks, which use AI power tools and trafficked labour are starting to shift base to countries with weaker policing and regulation systems.
Here’s what the UN’s latest findings reveal about the evolving threat landscape:
Crime Centres Operating Ahead of the Curve
What makes these criminal syndicates particularly dangerous, the UNODC notes, is their ability to stay ahead of the curve—technologically, geographically, and financially. These scam centres have embraced the latest tools in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and blockchain to scale their operations while shielding their activities from law enforcement.
Often masquerading as science parks, casinos, or Special Economic Zones, the centres are run like multinational corporations, complete with multilingual workforces, HR teams, and customer service departments. Their use of stablecoins and unregulated crypto exchanges allows them to move money globally with minimal traceability.
Some platforms, like Cambodia-based Huione Guarantee (now Haowang), have even launched their own stablecoins (a type of cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to another asset), creating self-contained financial ecosystems for laundering and reinvestment.
These networks, the report warns, are now shaping the future of organised crime, outpacing governments’ ability to respond.
Crackdowns Trigger Global Shift
As regional authorities intensify crackdowns on scam hubs—most notably in Myanmar, Cambodia, and the Philippines—crime groups have begun shifting operations beyond Southeast Asia. The report documents how these syndicates are targeting vulnerable regions in Africa, the Pacific Islands, and South Asia, seeking similar conditions of weak oversight and minimal enforcement.
UNODC identifies this as a deliberate hedging strategy, allowing operations to scatter and persist even when core centres are disrupted. The dispersal not only widens their reach but also complicates international investigations, particularly where cooperation across borders is lacking.
In Africa, for instance, Nigeria has emerged as a major hotspot. Raids in late 2024 and early 2025 uncovered cybercrime rings involving East and Southeast Asian nationals implicated in cryptocurrency and romance scams. Similar networks have been dismantled in Zambia and Angola, all with ties back to Asian syndicates.
The trend is visible in Latin America as well. Brazil is grappling with a spike in cyber fraud, illegal gambling, and laundering operations linked to Southeast Asian networks. In Peru, authorities rescued over 40 Malaysian nationals in late 2023 from a scam ring reportedly run by Taiwan’s Red Dragon syndicate.
The report also highlights ongoing enforcement actions in the Middle East and Pacific Island nations, where these syndicates have quietly established bases by exploiting regulatory loopholes and the limited capacity of local authorities.
India: Both a Target and a Source of Labour
India is deeply entangled in this unfolding crisis. The UN report highlights how hundreds of Indian nationals have been trafficked into scam compounds across Myanmar, Lao PDR, and Cambodia—lured under false pretences and forced into labour. In response, the Indian government launched large-scale repatriation efforts in March 2025 to rescue citizens trapped in these heavily guarded centres.
But India is not just a source of trafficked labour—it is also a prime target of these sophisticated, cross-border fraud networks. Without coordinated legal, diplomatic, and enforcement strategies, the report warns, India and its South Asian neighbours will continue to suffer the consequences of this rapidly spreading threat.
The UN report stresses the urgent need for a unified response, calling for intelligence sharing, capacity-building, and tighter financial oversight to dismantle these increasingly globalised criminal operations.
While rescue efforts continue abroad, signs suggest the threat is also shifting closer to home. India’s Ministry of External Affairs recently confirmed that 2,907 citizens have been brought back from scam centres across Southeast Asia. At the same time, there are growing indications that some cybercrime networks are now attempting to establish operations within India itself.
In a troubling development from March 2025, Goa Police arrested three individuals—including a Kazakhstan national—who were allegedly planning to set up scam call centres in the country, targeting victims through financial fraud and honey-trapping schemes.
