The Cyber-Scam Industry and its Implications for ASEAN Success
ASEAN Foreign Ministers Summit, Jakarta, Indonesia, July 14, 2023. Photo by Rory Arnold for UK Government, featuring UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly with Indonesian President Widodo.
Torture, coercion, money-laundering, financial theft, and forced labor: all of these horrors and more play across the screen in a recent hit Chinese film, “No More Bets,” which showcases ambitious young adults ensnared by the cyber-scam industry in Southeast Asia. In search of job opportunities, they find themselves locked into modern day slavery, abused and forced to carry out fraudulent schemes. In Cambodia, where the movie has been banned, this theatrical plotline is a reality. According to a recent United Nations Human Rights report, an estimated 100,000 people have been trafficked to work as online scammers in Cambodia, with worse statistics in neighboring Myanmar, and similar trends throughout Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the criminal fraud they are forced to commit has bilked billions of dollars from unwitting victims across the Asia-Pacific region and around the world, including in the United States.
These egregious human rights abuses have gone under the radar for years, facilitated by negligent, or even complicit, officials bribed to turn a blind eye to criminal schemes mostly operated by Chinese citizens and linked to regional elites. With crackdowns recently in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, the issue has received increasing attention, but experts predict the criminal activity will only move into more remote regions. This human rights crisis has sparked demands that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)—the region’s principal multilateral political and economic organization—intervene to end the proliferation in the transnational cybercrime industry. ASEAN has failed to do so, in part because of internal decision-making processes, including consensus-based decisions and non-interference in member states’ domestic affairs, that preclude coordinated action in areas where member states’ interests diverge. This inaction reveals broader cracks in ASEAN’s capability to address transnational human rights issues, calling into question the organization’s future as a keystone of the new Asia-centric world order.
Despite the recent influx of foreign resources and attention into Southeast Asia, the region is saddled with transnational crime. Autocratic regimes riddled with corruption and impunity, such as those in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos, provide an under-regulated environment conducive to human trafficking and cybercrime. In Myanmar, the destabilizing coup of 2021 worsened governance and oversight, resulting in a lack of central authority within contested territories run by rebel groups. As a result, these territories play host to “pig butchering” scam operations—a euphemism likening victims to pigs before their financial slaughter.
Cambodia’s political institutions similarly enable these human rights abuses. Trafficked workers make their long journey through official border immigration and via cross-country transportation into the indiscreet, sinister cyber scam properties—some of which are purportedly owned by tycoons and elites associated with Cambodian authorities, creating further suspicion that the government has enabled these crimes. In addition to China, citizens from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines, Taiwan, and Malaysia have all been reported to be among trafficked workers in Cambodia. Evidently, cybercrime is not a single-country issue; it affects virtually every nation in ASEAN, whether the scam compounds are controlled within their respective countries, their citizens are being trafficked to commit cybercrime, or their people are falling prey to the scams themselves.
When one thinks of cyber scams, the typical victim that comes to mind is usually a gullible individual duped to hand over their money through cryptocurrency fraud, catfishing, online sex scams, or rigged gambling. Scam targets around the world certainly suffer through financial losses, deceit, and humiliation. However, the underlooked and perhaps more egregious victims are those forced to carry out the cybercrimes, lured in with false job offerings on WeChat or Facebook, and then trapped in scam compounds as slaves for criminal syndicates profiting off of their forced labor. Pictures of the scam compounds reveal the brutal conditions: barbed wire fences and impenetrable entrances ensure that the fortresses are easily controlled by criminal overlords. And with their phones and passports confiscated, victims are secondarily trapped. Horrifying videos of torture and abuse that have escaped the compounds reveal beatings by sticks and electric batons, workers chained to beds and windows, as well as reports of starvation and sexual abuse. Evidence of the crisis has been visible in mysterious headlines about numerous foreign nationals “falling” to their death from casino buildings in Cambodia, a potential coverup of cybercrime victim suicides.
The cyber scams appear to have originated in Cambodia, where casinos expanded pre-pandemic to skirt laws against gambling in mainland China. Chinese investors flocked to the port city of Sihanoukville in southern Cambodia, rapidly constructing shoddy buildings, setting up online gambling schemes, and bringing gang violence with them. Yet when online gambling was banned and COVID-19 struck, business faltered and Cambodia was left with diminished investment and empty real estate. Cheap buildings were snatched up by cybercrime groups, and increased unemployment across the region made potential job prospects even more alluring to unsuspecting workers. Even more jarring, youth are most at risk of entrapment because of their interest in the digital economy and their anxiety to make ends meet during a global financial downturn. Despite their high levels of education and online literacy, youth suffer from poor awareness about the cybercrime industry because of a lack of public education on the scam campaigns.
In lieu of support from police and governments, some reporters and former victims have drawn attention to the crisis and work to release imprisoned workers, making contact and rescuing survivors from the compounds or from hospitals. However, the living conditions for those freed from the cybercrime compounds are not always a substantial improvement. Often, migrants forced to work as scammers are viewed as criminal perpetrators instead of victims, and detained in grim conditions alongside their traffickers, where they are further harassed and threatened by law enforcement.
Despite these blatant human rights abuses across many ASEAN member states, there has been a limited response from the organization. Reports of the human rights abuses began to emerge in 2021, but ASEAN was notably slow to address the issue and make a joint statement. In September 2023, ASEAN announced efforts in cooperation with China and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) to tackle the spread of the trafficking related to scam and casino operations, highlighting “an urgent need for regional cooperation.” This was a step in the right direction, but the entanglement of crime groups with business and government leaders, particularly across the Mekong region, necessitates more vigorous measures, and on expedited schedule to save current trafficking victims. This strategic plan followed a similar ASEAN meeting in May 2023, after which an Indonesian minister admitted the difficulty of working with the Myanmar military regime on such issues, due to its internal strife, and the need for a regional extradition treaty to better crack down on criminals and “solidify ASEAN as a rules-based community.”
ASEAN’s muted and delayed response is, however, characteristic of the organization. There are two central structural roadblocks to advancing substantial agendas within ASEAN. The first is the mechanism of consensus, meaning no decision or statement can be taken without the full agreement of each of the ten member states. This “pursuit of harmony” is advertised as respecting sovereign equality and national interests, and ensures each voice within the region will be heard. Unfortunately, this means issues that lack consensus are often unaddressed, creating an acute lack of constructive contributions to global conflicts. Major regional disagreements have paralyzed ASEAN, with a lack of unity towards South China Sea disputes, the Rohingya genocide, the egregious Myanmar coup, and most recently, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict. ASEAN reactions to these most recent international crises reflect its internal disarray, with member states issuing varying or muted responses to both the Russia-Ukraine War and the Israel-Hamas War, despite the fact that these conflicts have impacted food and energy security in the region. The second structural roadblock is the principle of noninterference, which stresses the importance of allowing member states to handle their internal issues with autonomy for the sake of keeping the peace. However, this has been critiqued for decades as facilitating human rights abuses and favoring interstate harmony over moral accountability. These two features of ASEAN have created a crisis of relevance for the organization, and prevent the region from gaining geopolitical influence.
To be fair, ASEAN centrality—the organization’s stated aim to be “the dominant regional platform to overcome common challenges and engage with external powers”—has been a major success in many ways, providing a convening authority for the Indo-Pacific region and breaking down economic barriers between countries. Yet it is possible to recognize these gains while simultaneously expressing concern for ASEAN’s future. The cybercrime industry is just one issue highlighting the organization’s growing incapacity to address regional issues.
Cyber scams may not be within the same political terrain as the aforementioned global conflicts, but it could be impactful on ASEAN’s legitimacy if handled properly. Cybercrime involves fewer ideological disputes between member states, and this is precisely why it could allow ASEAN to finally meet consensus on a transnational issue. Beyond the violation of citizens’ human rights, the economic and reputational impacts of inaction are substantial. The “No More Bets” film, for example, has reached swaths of audiences and reportedly diminished levels of tourism to Southeast Asia. Reputations of the nations depicted in the film have taken a hit, and Cambodia’s ban of the film has only drawn more attention to its failings.
Despite its well-advertised moral intentions, captured in the film’s tagline of “One more viewer, one less fraud victim,” the film has its ulterior motives—the first among which is to bolster the international reputation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Chinese criminal syndicates run the scams, recruit Chinese workers, and target Chinese victims—yet the movie’s heroic end projects that the CCP and Chinese extrajudicial law enforcement are the ones solving the problem. This propagandized version of the story captures partial truths: some Chinese law enforcement have clamped down on crime syndicates. However, China is more interested in the status of its own citizens involved in the enterprises, and is not equally accounting for other trafficking victims, such as the thousands from Southeast Asia. Unlike the implied message of the film, ASEAN cannot rely on China, or anyone else, to solve this issue. It is a moment for ASEAN to take action, protect the interests of its own nationals, and demonstrate its capability to be a responsible stakeholder for the region’s security.
On an issue that seems clearcut, with blatant human rights abuses and innocent victims entangled in dark schemes, ASEAN has lacked a forceful response because of its members’ divergent national interests. The organization’s inaction will enable the continuation of these frauds and impunity, demonstrating how ASEAN’s decision-making processes render it unable to tackle transnational issues. Cybercrime may not be a leading point of division in the organization, but coupled with other issues, it poses a genuine threat to ASEAN’s influence and authority, sowing distrust that ASEAN is capable of managing interior issues. Eliminating cyber scams is a potential success story for ASEAN, since it is a more promising opportunity for unified action than other, more contested, geopolitical issues.
ASEAN must develop methods that continue to prioritize regional harmony but leave room for disagreement and constructive dialogue if it hopes to demonstrate its leadership capabilities to the world. If the principles of consensus and noninterference prevent discussion of the issues most sensitive and vital to the region’s success and prominence on the global stage, perhaps it is time to reassess their efficacy. Addressing cybercrime and trafficking could demonstrate to the world, and its own people, that ASEAN is serious about confronting the challenges and responsibilities of regional leadership.
Gillian Murphy (GS ’25) is a Staff Writer at CPR and a third year in the dual degree program with Sciences Po, studying sustainable development and political science. Her central interests include Southeast Asian politics, the climate crisis, and the never-ending search for the perfect study spot at Columbia.