By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) . Southeast Asia and the Pacific

  The transnational organized crime threat landscape in Southeast Asia is evolving faster than in any previous point in history. This change has been marked by growth in the production and trafficking of synthetic drugs and cyber-enabled fraud, driven by highly sophisticated syndicates and complex networks of money launderers, human traffickers, and a growing number of other service providers and facilitators. Despite mounting enforcement efforts, cyber enabled fraud has continued to intensify, resulting in estimated financial losses between US $18 billion and $37 billion from scams targeting victims in East and Southeast Asia in 2023. A predominant proportion of these losses were attributed to scams committed by organized crime groups in Southeast Asia. Fundamentally, the sheer scale of proceeds being generated within the region’s booming illicit economy has required the professionalization and innovation of money laundering activities, and transnational criminal groups in Southeast Asia have emerged as global market leaders. Building on existing underground banking infrastructure including underregulated casinos, junkets, and illegal online gambling platforms that have adopted cryptocurrency, the proliferation of high-risk virtual asset service providers (VASPs) across Southeast Asia have now emerged as a new vehicle through which this has taken place, servicing criminal industries without accountability. Against this backdrop, it has become clear that several countries in Southeast Asia, and particularly those in the Mekong, have been targeted as a key testing ground for transnational criminal networks looking to expand their influence and diversify into new business lines. Asian crime syndicates have rapidly integrated new service-based business models and technologies including malware, generative AI, and deepfakes into their operations while opening up new underground markets and cryptocurrency solutions for their money laundering needs. As law enforcement and regulators stepped up their efforts against casinos, illegal online gambling, and cyber-enabled fraud in Southeast Asia, organized crime have hedged and consolidated by expanding operations across inaccessible and autonomous non-state armed group territories and other criminal enclaves in and around the Golden Triangle and elsewhere in the region and beyond. It is now increasingly clear that a potentially irreversible displacement and spillover has taken place in which organized crime are able to pick, choose, and move value and jurisdictions as needed, with the resulting situation rapidly outpacing the capacity of governments to contain it. Expanding on UNODC’s past analyses of casinos, money laundering, underground banking and transnational organized crime in Southeast Asia, the development of this report has required analysis of law enforcement investigations and prosecutions which have provided insights into the region’s shifting threat landscape. More specifically, it has been developed through extensive examination of criminal indictments and case records, intelligence analysis, court documents, and corporate records, as well as consultation with both international and regional law enforcement and criminal intelligence partners. UNODC has also conducted an extensive mapping and analysis of data obtained from thousands of Telegram underground marketplaces, groups, and channels attributed to Asian organized crime networks and affiliated service providers. The report consists of three comprehensive chapters, offering insights into the latest regional developments and trends, underground banking and money laundering, and technological innovation fueling the ongoing situation. It presents information and data points that have not previously been pieced together, representing a unique attempt to further improve understanding of the region’s evolving criminal ecosystem and the convergence of cyber-enabled fraud, underground banking, and technological innovation 

Vienna: UNODC, 2024. 142p.

By The United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 

This briefing paper sets out human rights concerns arising since early 2021 from online scam operations including their link to human trafficking in Southeast Asia as well as recommendations drawn from international human rights standards. These concerns occur in the context of wide-ranging digital criminal activity such as romance-investment scams, crypto fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling. At the time of writing this paper, the situation remains fluid: hundreds of thousands of people from across the region and beyond have been forcibly engaged in online criminality, States within the region are trying to identify actions and policies to address this phenomenon, while criminal actors are reacting by finding ways to change and relocate their operations, building new centres across the region and upgrading existing compounds. At the outset it is important to acknowledge that there are two sets of victims in this complex phenomenon. People who have been defrauded through online criminality are victims of the financial and other crimes committed by these scam operations. Many have lost their life savings, taken on debt and suffered shame and stigma for having been scammed. On the other side, individuals who are coerced into working in these scam operations and endure inhumane treatment are victims of serious human rights violations and it is their situation that is the focus of this briefing paper. People who are forced to take part in online scams are most often trafficked persons and migrants in vulnerable situations who face a range of human rights risks, violations and abuses. A human rights-based approach to this complex situation means not merely addressing organised crime or enforcing border controls, but seeks to place the victims at the centre of the response, by addressing structural factors, tackling impunity and providing protection and justice for victims of trafficking and migrants in situations of vulnerability. Human trafficking is a recognised criminal offence under international law and many of the practices associated with trafficking constitute violations under international human rights law. Violations of human rights are both a root cause of trafficking and can occur throughout the trafficking cycle. The majority of people trafficked into online scam operations are men, although women and children are also among the victims. Most are not citizens of the countries in which the trafficking occurs, however reports have indicated that at least in some countries nationals are also being targeted. People who have been trafficked into online forced criminality face threats to their right to life, liberty and security of the person. They are subject to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary detention, sexual violence, forced labour and other forms of labour exploitation as well as a range of other human rights violations and abuses.  This briefing paper is primarily focused on migrants who have endured trafficking and other human rights violations in the context of the scam operations, while acknowledging that the concerns and guidance contained here apply equally in most cases to citizens in this situation. The information in this briefing paper draws on primary and secondary research by the UN Human Rights Office, including victim testimony, as well as the work of the UN human rights mechanisms and information from other UN entities, supplemented by open-source information. While not exhaustive, Section A seeks to draw attention to the many serious human rights issues that result from this emerging phenomenon. Section B offers guidance to States and other stakeholders drawing from human rights standards and offers targeted recommendations aimed at ensuring responses are human rights-based. The briefing paper was transmitted to the relevant States for factual comments prior to publication

Bangkok: OHCHR, 2023. 38p.  

By Hai Thanh Luong

The Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), including five Southeast Asian countries and China, has experienced a significant increase in the cultivation of opium, trafficking of heroin and methamphetamine, and consumption of these illicit drugs. In recent years, the GMS has been expanded considerably as supply, destination, and transit route for illegal drug trade’s networks to and through, particularly when China officially applied ‘Belt and Road’ strategy. This paper reviews historical aspects and current trends in drug production and trafficking in the GMS, with special emphasis on Mekong River areas where China is ‘located’ as the heart of the transition. Some evidence consistent with the ‘supply, destination, and transit route’ arguments is found through locating and mapping drug trafficking networks to connect with China. Finally, this paper calls for some initial recommendations to improve the process of bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the GMS within the scope of Belt and Road Initiative. 

The Chinese Journal of Global Governance 6 (2020) 20–35 

By Anna Sergi  

  The ‘ndrangheta is a mafa group from Calabria, Southern Italy. Considerable eforts have been made to understand the structures and the organisation of this mafa, not only in the province of Reggio Calabria where it originated, but also in other Calabrian provinces and even outside the Calabrian region. Building on judicial data from a recent maxi-trial (Rinascita-Scott) against ‘ndrangheta clans in the province of Vibo Valentia, we build a theoretical approach based on narrative criminology applied to organisational studies of secretive organisations. We fnd a ‘script of narratives’ emerging from collaborators and affiliates' stories – about socialisation, discretion, and accreditation - which reveals how recognition and constitution of ‘added’ ‘ndrangheta clans are thought to work. This script helps us understand the constitutive power of narratives in mafas and critically approach the study of such organisations.

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27:389–411 pages

By J. R. Nicolás-Carlock and  Luna-Pla

In recent years, the analysis of economic crime and corruption in procurement has benefited from integrative studies that acknowledge the interconnected nature of the procurement ecosystem. Following this line of research, we present a networks approach for the analysis of shell-companies operations in procurement that makes use of contracting and ownership data under one framework to gain knowledge about the organized crime behavior that emerges in this setting. In this approach, ownership and management data are used to identify connected components in shell-company networks that, together with the contracting data, allows to develop an alternative representation of the traditional buyer-supplier network: the module-component bipartite network, where the modules are groups of buyers and the connected components are groups of suppliers. This is applied to two documented cases of procurement corruption in Mexico characterized by the involvement of large groups of shell-companies in the misappropriation of millions of dollars across many sectors. We quantify the economic impact of single versus connected shell-companies operations. In addition, we incorporate metrics for the diversity of operations and favoritism levels. This paper builds into the quantitative organized crime in the private sector studies and contributes by proposing a networks approach for preventing fraud and understanding the need for legal reforms.   

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27: pages 412–428

By Ruggero Scaturro | Giorgio Fruscione

In the Western Balkans, religious radicalization gained international attention in the early 2010s, with around 1 000 people travelling to Syria and Iraq to join jihadist groups between 2012 and 2016. The roots of this radicalization trace back to the Yugoslav wars, the presence of mujahideen networks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Islamist charities spreading Salafi jihadism in the 1990s.

However, not all fighters from the Western Balkans are religiously motivated. Between 2014 and 2021, around 300 people fought in eastern Ukraine, mainly for political reasons, with Serbia being a major source of combatants supporting pro-Russian separatists. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, this trend has resurged, with more individuals reportedly joining mercenary units like the Wagner Group.

Instability in the Western Balkans has also fuelled the spread of organized crime beyond the region, first across Europe and later to other continents. In the 1990s, the Yugo Mafia gained significant media attention in Northern Europe. Meanwhile, violent extremists from the Western Balkans maintain transnational connections through diaspora networks and using online platforms.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2025. 45p.