Southeast Asia illegal online gaming and scam industries have been growing since at least 2010, but expansion in the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos was rapid from the mid-2010s, Cyber Scam Monitor (CSM), an independent monitoring group, told AGB.

Myanmar police handed over six alleged key figures in a cyber scam fraud group and four other major crime suspects to Chinese public security authorities, as part of efforts to crack down on cross-border long-distance scams targeting Chinese nationals.

In a recent interview with AGB, Jeremy Douglas, Regional Representative at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shed light on the significant findings of a report regarding the pivotal role played by casinos, cryptocurrency, and VIP junkets in fostering underground banking and crime in East and Southeast Asia.

A newly released report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime sheds light on the alarming role of casinos, junkets, and cryptocurrency in driving the underground banking and money laundering infrastructure in East and Southeast Asia.

China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand are currently the largest illegal betting markets in Asia, and all of them have "limited or ineffective legal betting markets that cannot compete with the illegal market", the Chairman of the Council on anti-illegal betting & related financial crime for the Asian Racing Federation (ARF), Martin Purbrick, told AGB in an interview.

Senior officials from ASEAN, China and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have agreed to address transnational organized crime and trafficking in persons associated with casinos and scams.

The convictions of the heads of Suncity and Tak Chun, the two largest junket operators in the Macau SAR, has had a "massive impact" in Southeast Asia as VIP gaming promoter networks shifted operations to countries within the region, the Regional Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Southeast Asia and the Pacific told Asia Gaming Brief.

International pressure to further regulate the online gaming industry will continue to grow, in Asia and beyond, industry veteran Fredric Gushin commented today.

Jeremy Douglas discussed the findings of a report regarding the pivotal role played by casinos, cryptocurrency, and VIP junkets in fostering underground banking and money laundering in East and Southeast Asia.

The United States, United Kingdom, and Canada have imposed coordinated sanctions against 14 individuals and entities for their involvement in Southeast Asia’s online scamming industry, including some figures linked to regional casinos.