Asian scam centre crime gangs expanding worldwide: UN

Asian crime networks running multi-billion-dollar cyber scam centres are expanding their operations across the world as they seek new victims and new ways to launder money, the UN said on Monday.

Chinese and Southeast Asian gangs are raking in tens of billions of dollars a year targeting victims through investment, cryptocurrency, romance and other scams—using an army of workers often trafficked and forced to toil in squalid compounds.

The activity has largely been focused in Myanmar's lawless border areas and dubious "special economic zones" set up in Cambodia and Laos.