Content Writer: Janice Chew • Sunday, 25/10/2025 - 21:58:08 - PM
Governments in Southeast Asia are ramping up efforts to dismantle trans-national cyber-crime operations that overlap with human trafficking, forced labour and online scam networks. This has become a regional priority involving countries such as Cambodia and Myanmar, which are increasingly being used as hubs or safe-zones for these illicit operations.
High-level meetings have been convened: for instance, Kim Jina, a South Korean vice-minister, met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet in Phnom Penh, where they discussed the growing phenomenon of scam centres that recruit and exploit foreign nationals. According to the Malaysian Reserve, efforts included shutting dozens of centres and deporting thousands of foreign‐nationals suspected of operating or being coerced into these operations.
Data suggests thousands of victims are involved. The article from Asia Gaming Brief noted that roughly 3,500 suspects from 20 different countries have been picked up in recent crackdowns in Cambodia and Myanmar. Meanwhile, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that in Vietnam, for example, the number of victims supported after being trafficked into forced criminality via online scamming centres nearly tripled from 2022 to 2023.
Authorities are emphasising both the cyber-fraud dimension and the human-rights dimension. In Thailand, for instance, the government has publicly linked online scam operations to trafficking, forced labour and money-laundering, saying that the lines between “just an internet crime” and “serious organised exploitation of humans” are increasingly blurred.
Still, significant challenges remain. Legal frameworks in many of these countries are catching up with the changing nature of crime—especially where online platforms, cross-border recruitment, and digital payments are involved. Coordination across jurisdictions, multilingual victims, and sophisticated cyber-tools are all part of what makes this both a regional security issue and a human-protection issue. The South Korean appeal to ASEAN partners is emblematic of this.