BANGKOK, THAILAND: Southeast Asian nations, in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), have launched a groundbreaking strategy aimed at tackling organized crime and human trafficking in the region.

The initiative, announced in the Thai capital, Bangkok, is set to target criminal activities primarily linked to casinos, while also addressing money laundering and cybercrime.

Officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), joined by China, and representatives from UNODC, unveiled the comprehensive plan of action.

The new plan aims to strengthen preventative measures and enhance the capabilities of law enforcement agencies to combat international organized crime and human trafficking on a regional scale.

“Trafficking in persons connected to casinos and scam operations run by organized crime has mushroomed across Southeast Asia, particularly in the Mekong” remarked Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative to Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“There is an urgent need for regional cooperation to address these increasingly integrated and interlinked crimes in the region, as well as the ecosystem they exist in.”

Human trafficking, often utilized to recruit victims into criminal activities, is just one facet of transnational organized crime, as highlighted in a policy report released by UNODC on Tuesday (26 Sep).

This criminal activity is closely associated with border casinos, large-scale money laundering operations, cybercrimes, and an array of other illicit offenses. The report also documented credible instances of torture and extortion within these criminal operations over the past year.

Profits generated by criminal organizations in the region have reached unprecedented levels, with illicit funds increasingly funneled through the regional casino industry and other cash-intensive businesses, including the surge in cryptocurrency usage.

“Organized crime groups are converging in the region where they see vulnerabilities,” Mr. Douglas commented.

According to the report, scam operations in one Southeast Asian country are estimated to generate a staggering US$7.5 and US$12.5 billion, or half the value of that country’s GDP.

“One group of trafficking victims can generate hundreds of thousands of US dollars in a week for traffickers,” the report noted.

UN Policy Report highlights transnational crime gangs establishing remote bases in Myanmar

The UN’s policy report has shed light on the alarming presence of organized crime gangs operating in the border areas of Myanmar, adjacent to China.

These remote locations, often inaccessible to law enforcement, serve as operational hubs for criminal syndicates perpetrating online scams, leaving trafficking victims with scant chances of escape.

Powerful Chinese and Taiwanese criminal organizations, operating primarily in the Mekong region and the Philippines, have orchestrated a “scamdemic” resulting in billions of dollars being siphoned off through tactics that include romance scams, extortion, and investment pyramid schemes.

While certain crackdowns have been executed in Cambodia and the Philippines, these criminal groups are evolving and perfecting their fraudulent activities from fortified compounds located within the protective umbrella of ethnic rebel groups in the conflict-ridden terrain of Myanmar.

Locations of casinos and scam centres in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar (source: UN report)

In Myanmar, a significant hub for criminal activities has flourished in the Myawaddy region, situated just across a small river from the western Thai border town of Mae Sot.

Another network of compounds stretches along Myanmar’s eastern border with China, extending northward through Shan State, passing through the special administrative area of Wa State, and reaching Kokang, which shares a border with China’s Yunnan province.

Transnational crime syndicates operating openly and forming unusual alliances

The report has found that, rather than operating in the shadows, transnational organised crime groups there can be remarkably open, in some cases presenting themselves as legitimate business entities or even philanthropic organisations.

Some organised crime chiefs have developed public alliances with influential business leaders and officials.

Co-chaired by the Philippines and UNODC, the new plan is finalised and will be tabled by the Philippines at the next ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Transnational Crime.

“Addressing this issue in one or a few countries’ domestic contexts, while necessary and welcome, will not have a significant impact,” warned Rebecca Miller, UNODC Regional Advisor on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling.

“The plan the region has agreed to, includes practical and targeted actions to address transnational crime comprehensively and strategically.  Progress is being made, but more needs to be done and UNODC stands ready to support,” she added.

BEIJING, CHINA — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet will visit China this week and meet with President Xi Jinping, Beijing’s foreign ministry announced Monday.

“At the invitation of Premier Li Qiang… Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet will pay an official visit to China from September 14th to 16th,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a statement.

Hun Manet will also meet and hold talks with Premier Li Qiang and Standing Committee Chairman Zhao Leji, she told a regular briefing.

Hun Manet took over from his father, the country’s longtime leader Hun Sen, in August.

Phnom Penh became one of China’s strongest allies in the region under Hun Sen, who ruled with an iron fist for almost four decades, receiving huge sums of Chinese investment.

The visit will be one of Hun Manet’s first abroad since becoming prime minister, after he attended the summit of ASEAN leaders in Jakarta last week.

“This will be Prime Minister Hun Manet’s first official visit since taking office,” Mao said Monday.

“It reflects the great importance that the new Cambodian government attaches to the development of China-Cambodia relations,” she added, noting that 2023 will see the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Cambodia.

Beijing, Mao said, “looks forward to using this visit to plan for the future comprehensive strategic cooperation between China and Cambodia”.

It hopes to “achieve results as soon as possible, so as to build a high-quality, high-level and high-standard China-Cambodia community with a shared future in the new era,” she added.

In August, Hun Manet met with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the capital Phnom Penh, saying on his Telegram channel that the two had “pledged to promote cooperation between the two countries”.

He also reaffirmed in a Facebook post his government’s “unchanged position” towards the issue of Taiwan — which Beijing claims as part of its territory — and promised no interference in Chinese national affairs.

Wang also met his Cambodian counterpart and reaffirmed Beijing’s “unwavering commitment” to respecting Cambodian sovereignty and conveyed China’s support for the kingdom, according to a Cambodian foreign ministry statement.

His visit followed diplomatic clashes between Beijing and Manila over their claims to the South China Sea.

China insisted a Philippine navy vessel grounded on a reef in the Spratly Islands be removed from the hotly contested waters, long a flashpoint between them, after the Philippines accused the China Coast Guard of firing water cannon at boats on a resupply mission last weekend.

Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines are all members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is in talks with China about a code of conduct in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.

— AFP