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UN: Asian Criminal Networks Stole Over $88 Billion in 2025 as AI Use Grows
A new UNODC report finds that organized scam networks based in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos defrauded people worldwide of at least $88 billion in 2025, increasingly relying on generative AI and deepfakes, with recruitment campaigns now also reaching Polish speakers.
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The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published a report on July 21, 2026, finding that organized criminal networks operating across Southeast Asia scammed victims out of between $88.3 billion and $114.1 billion in 2025. The report's authors say these gangs are increasingly combining financial fraud with generative artificial intelligence, video and voice deepfakes, and automated phishing campaigns run simultaneously in multiple languages, including Polish.
A franchise model for crime
The report finds that networks which not long ago operated within a limited territory and a single criminal line of business are now expanding into several illicit markets at once, sharing infrastructure across them. Delphine Schantz, UNODC's regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, compared the operating model to corporate franchising, in which specialized units handling money laundering, human trafficking, migrant smuggling and data harvesting are all plugged into a single, service-based network.
Their operating model resembles corporate franchising: picture specialized units handling money laundering, human trafficking, migrant smuggling and data harvesting, all plugged into the same service-based, interconnected network - Delphine Schantz, UNODC regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific
Scam centers do not operate in hiding. According to the report, they run openly inside Special Economic Zones in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, using cryptocurrency platforms for near-instant transfers of funds. The networks are expanding beyond the traditional Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar triangle, reaching as far as Timor-Leste and countries in Africa, with recruitment of both victims and workers routed through transit hubs across Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
AI as a tool for fraudsters
The report notes that criminals are using generative AI to produce convincing phishing content, conduct real-time video and voice calls while impersonating other people, and automatically translate material into multiple languages at once, letting a single team target victims in different countries simultaneously. The report's authors expect criminal groups to next roll out agentic AI more widely, capable of independently identifying victims, running social-engineering campaigns, and handling the theft and laundering of cryptocurrency without constant human oversight.
Inshik Sim, a UNODC analyst and co-author of the report, pointed to a sharp rise in AI-generated child sexual abuse material circulated over encrypted messaging apps. Criminal groups from East Asia are also running operations that combine malware, generative AI and deepfakes for sexual extortion, which the report says raises the risk of both online exploitation and physical abuse and grooming of victims.
The scale and complexity of this evolving criminal economy is outpacing the existing response - Inshik Sim, UNODC analyst
A Polish angle in recruitment campaigns
Of particular relevance to Polish readers is a section of the report on recruitment campaigns run by these criminal networks. Recruitment material, often disguised as job offers abroad, is being prepared in Polish, alongside German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French, Swedish, Norwegian and English. This shows that scam centers in Southeast Asia are deliberately widening their pool of potential victims and forced laborers to include Central Europe, not just countries in Asia.
Earlier reporting from Poland, including data showing AI-enabled fraud losses growing by half and Poles losing hundreds of millions of zlotys a year, fits the same global trend now described by UNODC across the entire Asia-Pacific region.
Response and next steps
The report notes that in June 2026 a multinational operation targeted one of the scam networks operating in Southeast Asia, involving law enforcement agencies alongside technology companies including Meta, Microsoft, Starlink and Coinbase. Even so, the report's authors stress that the pace at which criminal networks are expanding and adopting new technology is outrunning the current response capacity of state institutions and international organizations.
UNODC is calling for closer international cooperation to combat these networks, including data-sharing between the countries victims come from and the states in the region where scam centers operate, along with greater involvement from technology platforms and financial service providers in detecting transactions linked to the laundering of proceeds from AI-assisted fraud.
