Chinese Renegades Operate Massive Scams in Outlaw Border Zones
UN, China, ASEAN act against human trafficking and online scams across region
By: Toh Han Shih
Asia’s poorest nations with the weakest governance – Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and the Philippines – are being used by renegade Chinese as a harbor for illegal offshore betting and related cyber-scam and sex work industries posing as Belt and Road enterprises, say investigators from an array of different agencies. They are estimated to employ as many as 75,000 to 250,000 people, many against their will. The Asian Racing Federation and the Mekong Club, an NGO that combats human trafficking, issued an explosive October 10 report that estimates the combined profits from online illegal betting and related cyber fraud and trafficking are in the region of US$40 billion to US$100 billion a year in these four Southeast Asian nations.
“Trafficking in persons connected to casinos and scam operations run by organized crime has mushroomed across Southeast Asia,” said Jeremy Douglas, UN Office on Drugs and Crime Regional Representative to Southeast Asia and the Pacific. “There is an urgent need for regional cooperation to address these increasingly integrated and interlinked crimes in the region, as well as the ecosystem they exist in.”
“The vast profits from such operations have provided plentiful ammunition to corrupt local authorities, and the operations in this group are frequently protected by powerful politicians,” the report of the racing federation and NGO alleged…