A new report by the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering has found the growth of cyber scam hubs across Southeast Asia to be largely anchored around Special Economic Zones, with locations like Dara Sakor in Cambodia, the infamous Golden Triangle and even Clark in the Philippines providing the perfect storm of lax regulation and limited enforcement.
The report, titled “Cyber Scam Hubs and Human Trafficking Report 2026,” also draws a direct link to the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw many casinos and hotels operated by criminal syndicates within these zones no longer able to generate sufficient proceeds due to lockdowns. As such, these casinos and hotels were repurposed into cyber scam hubs populated by human trafficking victims to conduct scams.
