Southeast Asia’s Scam Gangs Regroup After Cambodia’s Crackdown
Despite Cambodia's efforts, scam networks find new havens in Southeast Asia
KEY POINTS
- Cambodia says it has closed more than 250 scam sites and deported 48,000 foreign nationals, but gangs appear to have simply relocated rather than disbanded
- An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people may have been transferred from Cambodia to Myanmar since the crackdown began
- Scam-related losses across Asia-Pacific reached between $88 billion and $114 billion in 2025 alone, according to the UN
Cambodia says it has dismantled a scam industry estimated to have stolen tens of billions of dollars last year, but a string of recent arrests across the region suggests the criminal networks behind it have simply changed address — resurfacing in Laos, Myanmar and, increasingly, Malaysia.
Scam compounds proliferated across Cambodia during the pandemic, when hundreds of thousands of jobless young people were funneled into defunct casino complexes to run bogus romance, cryptocurrency and investment schemes against victims worldwide. Chinese criminal networks found the country an easy base of operations given its reputation for entrenched corruption, but that foothold eventually drew intense pressure from both Beijing and Washington to shut the trade down.
By February, Cambodia's Information Ministry said more than 250 scam sites had been shuttered and roughly 48,000 foreign nationals deported as the crackdown gathered pace.
Where The Gangs Went
Rather than disappearing, the networks appear to have scattered. Jay Kritiya, a coordinator with the Civil Society Network for Human Trafficking Victim Assistance, said the group has received reports that between 10,000 and 20,000 foreign nationals may have been transferred from Cambodia into Myanmar following the crackdown, with victims describing being "transferred and resold" between the two countries. The organization estimates more than 13,700 people from countries as varied as India and Ethiopia remain trapped inside Myanmar's scam compounds today.
Laos has also emerged as a landing spot, particularly in the country's Golden Triangle special economic zones, where analysts say weak rule of law and entrenched elite protection have allowed criminal operations to expand largely unchecked. Thai police have separately traced scam-linked networks recruiting cash-strapped Thai citizens and laundering funds through domestic bank accounts as operations shift toward the Laos border.
Most strikingly, the networks have now reached Malaysia. The Malaysian Humanitarian Organisation said in June it had identified at least two Malaysian locations linked to scam syndicate operations that had relocated from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar amid intensifying regional enforcement, including stepped-up action by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. "It is deeply embarrassing that Malaysia is now being used as a haven for scammers after years of efforts to rescue victims from Myanmar and Cambodia," the group's secretary-general, Hishamuddin Hashim, said at the time.
A Regional Problem By The Numbers
The scale of the industry helps explain why enforcement in any single country has struggled to stamp it out. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated in July that scam-related losses across the Asia-Pacific region reached between $88 billion and $114 billion in 2025 alone — a sum the agency said "even at the low end, outstrips the GDP of several countries in the region." For comparison, Cambodia's entire GDP in 2025 was roughly $50 billion, while Myanmar's stood at about $82 billion, according to World Bank estimates.
Analysts describe the pattern as a deliberate, adaptive strategy rather than random displacement: as pressure mounts in one jurisdiction, networks shift to neighboring areas offering weaker legal oversight, political protection, or conflict-driven disorder — first from Cambodia to Laos, then into the war-torn borderlands of Myanmar, and now into new territory in Malaysia.
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