The scam operations industrialised in South-East Asia during the past five years have been estimated to cost victims about $60 billion each year<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, mostly Chinese criminals have been running call-centre style scam operations, often from walled compounds in remote areas.<\/p>\n Scams in Cambodia have been operated out of compounds like this. (Reuters: Cindy Liu)<\/p>\n With the help of AI real-time deepfake face-swapping technology, they were becoming more effective at swindling people, often through bogus property investment schemes.<\/p>\n South-East Asia’s cyberscammers hiding behind digital masks<\/a><\/p>\n AI tools such as face-swapping and chatbots are being used by South-East Asia’s crime syndicates to make their scams more efficient and effective.\u00a0However, some operations appear to be having less success with the new tech than others.<\/p>\n However, as authorities in South-East Asia and Beijing continued to disrupt operations, the scammers have been heading closer to Australia.<\/p>\n “What is currently being observed in Timor-Leste shares stark similarities to what was seen in the early stages of the current scam centre crisis in Mekong countries and the Philippines,” the UN said in a new report<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Once infiltrated by organised crime these jurisdictions often become hubs for cyber fraud, drug trafficking, and human trafficking.”<\/p>\n There were indications of similar operations being underway in Papua New Guinea and other areas of the Pacific with “weaker regulatory oversight”, the UN said.<\/p>\n Why run scams out of Timor-Leste?<\/p>\n Oecusse-Ambeno was set up as a free trade zone in December 2024.<\/p>\n The organised crime outfits were onto it almost straight away.<\/p>\n Within months, authorities had detected suspicious activity, and by the end of August had uncovered evidence including SIM cards and Starlink devices \u2014 which the UN said was a “key indicator of online scam activity”.<\/p>\n Financial crime expert Anton Moiseienko<\/a> from the ANU said areas like Oecusse-Ambeno were attractive to organised crime groups due to their looser regulations.<\/p>\n They’re created to attract business, investment and trade.<\/p>\n That’s also a lure for those looking to cash in illegally.<\/p>\n “This is because they frequently involve lesser regulatory oversight than the rest of the country, but also a greater amount of commercial activity,” Dr Moiseienko told the ABC.<\/p>\n “This makes it easier for overseas criminal groups to establish a foothold in the jurisdiction while concealing their criminal operations.”<\/p>\n In a press release announcing plans to drive investment and modernisation, Oecusse-Ambeno positioned itself “as Timor-Leste’s premier hub for digital innovation, sustainable tourism, and green energy”.<\/p>\n “We are executing a bold, integrated road map to reshape Timor-Leste’s economic future,” it said<\/a>.<\/p>\n This move probably helped to put it on the radar of the scam operators, Dr Moiseienko said.<\/p>\n Scammed on social media \u2013 new figures show people over 65 are prime targets<\/a><\/p>\n There are promising signs a crackdown is working, however Australians were fleeced of just under half a billion dollars last year, according to new ACCC Scamwatch figures.<\/p>\n Because scam centres can be run from anywhere, organised crime was constantly looking for areas like this that can become “safe havens” for their illegal operations, he said.<\/p>\n He said even though authorities in Oecusse-Ambeno had raided one operation, scam activity would not necessarily decrease.<\/p>\n “Will we see convictions and, if so, will they target anyone beyond low-level foot soldiers?”<\/p>\n “Even if they do, the real question is whether the law enforcement pressure in Timor-Leste is greater or lesser than elsewhere.”<\/p>\n The ABC has contacted the Timor-Leste government for comment.<\/p>\n During the raid, authorities detained about 30 foreigners, who had come from Indonesia, Malaysia and China and didn’t have permission to work.<\/p>\n The UN said it was unclear if they had been trafficked.<\/p>\n Some of them had university qualifications, and the UN said that pointed to a “growing professionalisation” of the operations.<\/p>\n Notorious crime boss ‘Broken Tooth’ involved<\/p>\n As well as uncovering the scam, the UNODC said a company focused on offshore online gambling owned by a Cambodian businessman \u2014 with links to Wan Kuok Koi, a leader of the 14K triad criminal gang \u2014 was active in Oecusse-Ambeno.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wan Kuok Koi is a crime boss known as “Broken Tooth”.<\/p>\n He has been sanctioned by the US, but his business associate has ties with one of the owners of a new casino in Brisbane<\/a>.<\/p>\n The US government says ‘Broken Tooth’ Wan Kuok Koi is a leader of the 14K triad. (Supplied: YouTube)<\/p>\n The UNODC said the network in Oecusse-Ambeno was involved with Broken Tooth “whose gambling and junket ventures have long intersected with online fraud and illicit finance across South-East Asia”.<\/p>\n It has links to “money laundering for scam operations and a corporate entity repeatedly implicated in online gambling and scam infrastructure”, the UNODC said.<\/p>\n “The casino expanded its lottery-branded operations abroad, including into Timor-Leste, where the same tactics are now being used to exploit [Oecusse-Ambeno],” it said.<\/p>\n “Part of this infrastructure includes an autonomous system hosting suspicious websites and applications that present themselves as legitimate lottery services but in practice facilitate fraud and illicit gambling.”<\/p>\n The triad-linked operators have pulled out all the stops to keep their real money earners hidden.<\/p>\n “Criminal groups are exploiting shell companies, professional services, and multiple passports to evade detection, while embedding illicit operations within legitimate investment frameworks,” the UNODC said.<\/p>\n What to do if caught in a scam<\/p>\n Data shows the number of scams hit a record high in 2023, with Australians being duped out of almost $3 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n That dropped to about $2 billion last year.<\/p>\n Loading…<\/p>\n “Australia continues to be a significant target for cybercriminals as it is a relatively prosperous country, and Australians tend to be very trusting,” the Australian Federal Police (AFP) told the ABC.<\/p>\n It said it works with overseas authorities to target “high-level transnational organised crime syndicates based offshore who conduct scams against Australians”.<\/p>\n The AFP has warned people to act quickly if they think they have been caught up in one.<\/p>\n An AFP spokesperson told the ABC suspected scams should be reported to police<\/a> via a national online portal, and to the ACCC’s ScamWatch<\/a>.<\/p>\n If money has been transferred or odd account activity has been noticed, people should contact their financial institutions, the AFP spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scam centres run by Asian organised crime outfits appear to have set up on Australia’s doorstep, exploiting areas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,103877,103876,44,103875,93686,22864,103873,1864,103874,103878],"class_list":{"0":"post-155750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-broken-tooth","11":"tag-internet-scam","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-oecusse-ambeno","14":"tag-online-fraud","15":"tag-scam","16":"tag-scam-centre","17":"tag-triad","18":"tag-united-nations-office-on-drugs-and-crime","19":"tag-unodc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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