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No. 4/2025 · December 2025
Beyond Declarations: A Global Strike Force Against Scam Centers?
Introduction
The International Conference on the Global Partnership against Online Scams, held in Bangkok, on 17-18 December 2025, took place at a most opportune time, as the UN Convention Against Cybercrime has just been concluded in October 2025
The said conference, attended by representatives from roughly 60 countries, resulted in the Bangkok Joint Statement. The Joint Statement outlined a number of proposed next steps, such as the formation of a global partnership, asset seizure and financial tracking and private sector Integration. The conference also discussed plausible timelines to implement such next steps. However, clarity is still needed on who will take charge in driving the agenda and see to it that words are turned into action.
What is also interesting is that, at the conference, while there is a diplomatic consensus to treat trafficked workers as victims rather than as criminals, which is a compassionate step forward, the reality on the ground remains a brutal, industrial-scale nightmare.
Across Southeast Asia—specifically in Cambodia—thousands of people are living in what can only be described as modern-day concentration camps. These compounds are fortified bastions where victims are subjected to electrocution, solitary confinement, and systematic torture.1 Protected by a toxic mix of corrupt local officials and foreign mercenaries, these “scam farms” operate with near-total impunity, while siphoning billions of dollars from innocent people globally.
The Industrial Scale of the Crisis
The UNODC estimates that financial losses from scams targeting victims in East and Southeast Asia alone reached between $18 billion and $37 billion in 2023.2 By the end of 2025, global cybercrime costs are projected to reach a staggering $10.5 trillion annually.3 These are not mere “internet crimes”; they are the primary revenue stream for transnational organized crime syndicates that have integrated generative AI and deepfakes to “multiply” their reach, and the impact to innocent victims across the world will only be increasingly severe and complex as time passes.4
The border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia helped revealed that the industry’s footprint in Cambodia is massive. Reports suggest scam revenues may account for the equivalent of 40% to 60% of the country’s GDP.5 According to a report by Amnesty International, there are over 50 fortified “prison-like” compounds spread across Cambodia, especially in areas close to the Thailand-Cambodia border.6 Such compounds are often owned by business elites with close ties to senior government officials, ensuring that local law enforcement is either complicit or stymied by “advanced warnings” of impending raids.7
Actionable Next Steps: From Words to Warfare
If the 60 or so nations present in Bangkok are serious about “moving from discussion to action,” the next steps must be surgical and uncompromising:
- Establish an International Strike Force: Diplomacy has failed to breach the walls of compounds like those in the Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Affected nations— including South Korea, China, India, Thailand, as well as other countries in the ASEAN region—must form a joint military and police strike force. And, although the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime do provide a framework for international cooperation to combat transnational crime, it is clear that the presence of armed mercenaries justifies a more robust tactical response.8
- Enforce Economic Isolation: Financial intelligence units must move beyond “tracking” to aggressive “freezing.” Any entity found hosting these operations—such as the Prince Group, which has been repeatedly linked to scam compounds—should face total exclusion from the global financial system.9
- A “No-Safe-Haven” Extradition Protocol: We need a standardized, fast-track extradition process for scam kingpins that bypasses the bureaucratic delays currently exploited by criminal lawyers and bribed officials.
Conclusion
Simply talking and producing declarations is no longer an acceptable response. While diplomats and government officials exchange ideas on podiums and on paper, thousands are losing their lifetime savings, their livelihood and even their lives. The 2025 Bangkok Joint Statement will be a hollow legacy if it does not lead to the physical dismantling of these concentration camps. Affected countries must come together to act—not tomorrow, but now.
Footnotes
- INTERPOL, “Growing threat of transnational scam centres highlighted at INTERPOL General Assembly,” Nov 26, 2025.
- UNODC, “Transnational Organized Crime and the Convergence of Cyber-Enabled Fraud,” Oct 7, 2024.
- Cybersecurity Ventures, “Cybercrime To Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025,” Dec 8, 2025.
- UNODC, “Billion-dollar cyberfraud industry expands in Southeast Asia,” 2024.
- USCC, “China’s Exploitation of Scam Centers in Southeast Asia,” July 18, 2025.
- Amnesty International. “I Was Someone Else’s Property”: Human Trafficking for Online Scamming in Cambodia. Amnesty International Ltd, June 2025, www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa23/8044/2025/en/.
- U.S. Department of State, “2025 Trafficking in Persons Report: Cambodia.”
- UNODC, “International Law and Human Trafficking,” Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons.
- Global Taiwan Institute, “The Prince Group, Symbol of a Crisis,” Dec 17, 2025.
Bibliography
Cybersecurity Ventures. (2025). Cybercrime to Cost the World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025. Specialized Industry Report.
Global Taiwan Institute. (2025). The Prince Group, Symbol of a Crisis: Transnational Organized Crime in SE Asia. GTI Strategic Studies Series.
INTERPOL. (2025). Operational Report: The Evolution of Fraud and Forced Labor Compounds. Lyon, France.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). (2024). Transnational Organized Crime and the Convergence of Cyber-Enabled Fraud, Underground Banking, and Technological Innovation: A Shifting Threat Landscape. Vienna: UNODC Research and Trend Analysis Branch.
United States Department of State. (2025). Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report: Cambodia Country Narrative. Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). (2025). China’s Exploitation of Scam Centers in Southeast Asia and the Impact on U.S. National Interests. Congressional Hearing Record.
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