Published by the US-funded Humanity Research Consultancy, Sims’ report follows a chilling assessment by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which last month expressed alarm at the exponential growth of Southeast Asia-based transnational crime with its reach having extended to the Pacific, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America.
Southeast Asian-based crime syndicates have quickly evolved from synthetic drug production to unregulated casinos and online gambling, and are now world leaders in “industrial scale” cyber-enabled fraud and scams enabled by networks of human traffickers, money launderers, technology experts, and data brokers, according to the UNODC.
It added the “professionalisation” of recruitment continued to attract countless, often talented but underemployed, young people from more than 60 countries through deceptive job offers, noting some became willing participants in illegal activities but many end up essentially as slaves subject to extortion and ransom demands, and coercion ranging from beatings to torture and even murder.
