Across Asia-Pacific (APAC), cybercrime syndicates are increasingly employing decentralization strategies to evade detection and disruption, according to a new report by the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), a regional inter-governmental body based in Australia. This comes in response to the intensified efforts of law enforcement and regulatory authorities to dismantle these large-scale criminal groups.
The AGP research, which involved polling public sector agencies and private sector entities and interviewing industry stakeholders, revealed that 35% of its member jurisdictions have encountered or been aware of instances of decentralization.
Specifically, members have observed the dissipation of scam centre compounds, particularly following law enforcement raids and dismantling of existing cyber scam hubs, and the relocation of their activities to areas where they may face reduced scrutiny. Historically, these cyber scam compounds have been concentrated in remote border areas and Special Economic Zones in the Mekong sub-region, particularly in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos.
Some of these compounds have also dispersed into smaller operations, using hotel rooms, private residences, vacation rentals, or entire floors of commercial buildings across Asia and other areas of the world, obscuring their operational footprints and complicating investigative efforts.
Raids and arrests across Asia
Recent raids and arrests across Asia further highlight this trend. In July 2026, Malaysian police arrested 335 people in raids on two alleged international online scam syndicates operating out of Forest City in the southern state of Johor. Local media outlet the Star reported that these syndicates were suspected of being involved in various scams, including love scams, currency scams, cryptocurrency fraud and impersonating law firms, targeting victims in China, Indonesia, Japan, the US and Europe.
Johor police chief Comm Datuk AB Rahaman Arsad said the scam centers, which occupied 32 premises, including 27 apartments and five bungalows, involved suspects who had previously worked in scam centers overseas, and which entered Malaysia from Cambodia.
In Vietnam, police in the northern province of Lao Cai raided a local hotel in June 2026, arresting 19 Chinese nationals who had moved from Cambodia to engage in online scams. Tuoi Tre reported that the group targeted Chinese citizens seeking loans, posing as employees of loan apps and instructing victims on application procedures before defrauding them of their money.
Sri Lanka is another country that’s experiencing a rise in cybercrime activity from the relocation of scam compounds. The Guardian reported in June that authorities in Sri Lanka had carried out more than a dozen raids on alleged scam operations in the country since the beginning of the year, arresting and deporting almost 700 foreigners accused of involvement.
Cybercrime syndicates embrace AI
Another finding from the APG research is the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) to target victims more efficiently. Perpetrators are now leveraging the technology to enhance their scam operations through automated, personalized messaging, predictive algorithms to identify potential victims, and even deepfake technology to manipulate and deceive individuals. AI automation also reduces the number of human operators needed, making their operations more efficient.
APG members identified a number of ways in which AI is being used to enhance the operations of cyber scam hubs. Notably, 82% of members observed the use of deepfakes, and 59% identified the use of voice cloning for these scams, underscoring the prevalence and proliferation of AI-enabled fake identities and impersonation.
In this application, AI is employed to create highly realistic fake images, videos and audio to trick victims, expand the reach to more languages and locations, as well as increase the scale of operations without increasing human labor. This technology can also be used to perpetrate employment scams to continue to tap into the pipeline of trafficked individuals for forced criminality in cyber scam centers.
After deepfakes, chatbots, or AI-generated responses were identified by 65% of members surveyed, making it the second most prominent application of AI to run scams. In this application, AI applications are programmed to automate repetitive tasks and reduce the level of human intervention to interact rapidly in real time. For example, these systems can be used to build relationships with potential victims over an extended period of time to build trust.
Cyber scam hubs in Southeast Asia
Across APAC, criminal syndicates are exploiting opaque legal structures, emerging technologies, regulatory gaps, and corruption to run large-scale cyber scam compounds. These facilities, predominantly located in Myanmar and Cambodia, are often involved in human trafficking operations.
Operators lure foreign nationals to these hubs under the pretext of lucrative overseas job opportunities and fake high-paying employment offers. Once the victims arrive, many are locked inside compounds, stripped of their passports and travel documents, and forced through violence, threats and debt bondage to carry out online scam operations.
The United Nations estimates that more than 300,000 people are currently trapped in cyber scam centers in Southeast Asia. In 2025, the combined annual losses from scam offenses across East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand reached between US$88.3 billion and US$114.1 billion.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by thanyakij-12 via Magnific
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