Laos’ Golden Triangle Becomes Cybercrime Hotbed | #cybercrime | #infosec

Laos’ Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone has seemingly become a hotbed of cybercrime on the Mekong River.

Critics say Kings Romans Group, owner of the Kings Romans Casino across the river from Thailand and Myanmar, is a main driver of these alleged transgressions, according to Barron’s, which cited Agence France-Presse reporting.

The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) is the most notable of more than 90 areas established across the Mekong region in recent years that offer tourists reduced taxes or government regulation. The GTSEZ was founded in 2007 when the Lao government allowed Chinese-owned Kings Romans Group to move in on a 99-year lease in the area.

The GTSEZ was created to attract visitors to an urban development area with little official oversight. In addition to resorts and casinos like the Kings Romans Casino, high-rises dot the area, with some of these towers allegedly being the epicenter of illegal activities in the city, according to AFP.

The buildings are reportedly leased out as centers operating online finance and romance scams. Cyberfraud compounds such as these have sprouted up in special economic zones like the GTSEZ across Southeast Asia, per the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

International oversight authorities and analysts say the city has devolved into a cybercrime hub because workers from around the world are drawn in with better-paying jobs than they would have in their home countries.

The locale offers a “juxtaposition of the grim and the bling,” according to Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group, noting that it gives the “impression of opulence, a sort of Las Vegas in Laos” but has a “grim reality” underneath of a criminal landscape that is allegedly flourishing.

Kings Romans Group was founded by Zhao Wei, a Chinese businessman with ties to the Lao government, which has awarded him with medals for his development projects in the past. The location’s status as a “storage, trafficking, deal-making, and laundering hub [is] likely to expand,” the International Crisis Group said in a report last year.

Zhao, three associates and three of his companies were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2018 over an alleged “array of horrendous illicit activities” including human, drug and wildlife trafficking and child prostitution.

The United States Institute for Peace estimated in 2024 that criminal syndicates based in the Mekong region were likely stealing more than $43.8 billion annually.

— Chris Malone Méndez

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