Time for Asean to tackle scam trade

In April, China's President, Xi Jinping, undertook a tour of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) member countries in an effort to shore up his country’s relationships amidst rising tensions and fears of a full-blown trade war with the United States.

- SAMADY OU

While these visits sought to tighten diplomatic ties and deepen economic collaborations, a troubling issue continues to fester in many countries: the growing proliferation of cybercrime and multi-billion-dollar cyber scam networks.

As some ill-got investment has been linked to China. Many of these scam centres — operated by or with the support of the Chinese investors — have taken root within Asean countries in recent years. Thriving on corruption and a lack of transparency, these operations have seized on the willingness of certain countries, such as Cambodia and Myanmar. Now, at what the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) calls an “inflexion point” for cybercrime regionally, nations around the world are stepping up their responses to the risk of online fraud by scam centres in South East Asia.

These centres, which were once directed at domestic victims, have gone global with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). This has enabled the development of alternative online worlds, into which victims are drawn and subsequently defrauded. Operators also now have years of accumulated knowledge at their disposal, and can use this database of information to identify weak spots in their potential victims.