Timor-Leste’s Criminal Investigation Police detained 90 foreign nationals on Monday in two separate operations targeting suspected online scam operations, the latest in a widening crackdown that has followed the country’s decision to scrap its offshore online gambling regime.
The operations took place in the Comoro area of Dili and in Ulmera, in the administrative post of Bazartete in Liquiçá municipality, about 17 kilometers from the capital. Police said the raids were intended to locate and dismantle fraud schemes run out of call centers.
“Today, we carried out two operations. One was in Dili, where we arrested 14 Chinese nationals caught in the act. The other took place in Liquiçá, where we arrested 75 Indonesian nationals and one Chinese national. In total, the two operations resulted in the arrest of 90 people,” Chief Superintendent João Belo dos Reis, spokesperson for the National Police of Timor-Leste (PNTL), told Lusa.
Belo dos Reis said the raids followed intelligence gathered by the police’s own investigation service with input from community leaders in the two areas, which pointed to potential fraud activity at the sites. Those detained were taken to the Criminal Investigation Headquarters in Kaikoli for identification and investigative procedures, and police were examining seized cash, equipment and documents. He said further details would be provided the following day, citing judicial secrecy.
The 90 arrests come days after Timorese authorities detained around 200 people, mostly nationals of China, Cambodia and Indonesia, on suspicion of involvement in illegal online activities centered on illegal gambling and fraud. A separate case involving 27 defendants tied to a scam call centre in Metiaut is already before the courts.
The enforcement wave traces back to a September 2025 threat alert from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which warned that criminal networks were taking root in Oecusse, the Timorese enclave surrounded by Indonesian territory, and that the region risked becoming a hub for cyber fraud, drug trafficking and human trafficking. The UNODC assessment drew explicit parallels with scam center operations in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Malaysia, and flagged the Oecusse Digital Centre free trade zone as a point of vulnerability exploited by organized crime posing as legitimate investors.
The warning prompted a rapid policy reversal. Timor-Leste had entered the offshore online gambling market only in April 2025, issuing its first license to Golden River Universe, a subsidiary of Grand Dragon Lotaria (GD Lotto), which had signaled plans to relocate operations from Cambodia and the Philippines to the country.
In October 2025, the Council of Ministers approved a resolution canceling all existing online gambling and betting licenses, halting pending applications and prohibiting new permits, citing risks to national security, social stability, economic integrity and international reputation. Golden River Universe said it respected the decision.
Timor-Leste became a full member of ASEAN in October 2025, a step the UNODC had cautioned could heighten the cross-border risk of scam networks expanding into the country.
