The Sawyers from Australia were never really interested in volatile investing. As their retirement age approached, the idea of a low-risk investment for their pension seemed attractive. But one day, after clicking on a seemingly legitimate online advert that offered a reasonable risk-averse plan, they unlocked a process that would lead them to lose over $2.5 million.
"The scammer was extraordinarily believable," Kim Sawyer, a former university professor in Melbourne, said. "He had a British accent, used all the right financial market terms and knew how to induce us by appearing credible every time."
The Sawyers are not an isolated case.
Using sophisticated cyber-tools, artificial intelligence and impersonation techniques, scammers trapped in centres across Southeast Asia have been defrauding victims of their savings for billions of dollars. In 2024, the United States alone reported losses amounting to $10 billion to scam operations based in the region [AP1] [LG2] .
The victims that scammers target are all over the world and, in many cases, highly educated: the Sawyers both have master's degrees and are experienced stock market investors.
Partnerships against organised fraud
Though scams are becoming increasingly global, the response to these crimes is also becoming transnational.
Governments, law enforcement agencies, private companies and civil society were brought together by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime ( UNODC ) and INTERPOL at the Global Fraud Summit in Vienna, Austria, with a mandate to work more closely together including:
- shared intelligence
- joint investigations
- streamlined prosecutions across borders
Additionally, last December in Bangkok, Thailand, representatives from nearly 60 countries gathered alongside tech giants Meta and TikTok to launch the Global Partnership Against Online Scams.
The Bangkok conference, hosted by the Government of Thailand and UNODC, followed by the Global Fraud Summit, mark a diplomatic inflection point for international cooperation against scam centres.
But, the criminal infrastructure entrenched across Southeast Asia that drives fraud maintains a global reach.
An entire criminal ecosystem at work
These operations across the region go beyond just fraud. These networks facilitate money laundering, develop and deploy malware, weaponise artificial intelligence (AI) for deepfakes and voice cloning and sell cybercrime capabilities as services.
Recent raids in the Philippines and Cambodia tell the same story: one scam centre is in fact just a small slice of a connected crime infrastructure generating billions in illicit financial flows.
It is organised crime at scale, where fraud operations are merely the surface layer of a deeper ecosystem involving corruption, human trafficking and transnational money laundering.
"We need to be looking into prosecuting high-level criminals, following the money through financial investigations and identifying the giant networks that operate behind these operations," said Delphine Schantz, UNODC's regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
"The complexity of these crimes requires an equally complex, whole-of-government approach and enhanced coordination among governments, financial intelligence units and digital banks."
On-the-ground responses
Philippines: On a recent visit to a former scam center in Manila, the Philippines, UNODC officials and investigators walked through rooms where crime bosses once orchestrated fraud operations just hundreds of metres from government offices and foreign embassies.
In the compound, now converted into offices for the Philippines' Presidential Anti-Organised Crime Commission (PAOCC), certain rooms have been left in their original state: places where bosses would enjoy entertainment, like a karaoke room and a gaming hall, alongside a torture chamber used to punish trafficked workers who did not meet their quotas.
A logbook from the entertainment area listed politicians, municipal officials and police officers entertained as guests, evidence of the corruption that allowed these operations to flourish.
"How do you prove a cybercrime in 36 hours? It is not possible," said PAOCC's operations director, recalling the scramble when police first raided the site. They had just over a day to file charges before legal deadlines expired.
UNODC is helping countries in the region to address these gaps:
- targeting capacities to gather, analyse and share electronic evidence
- reducing space for organised criminal groups to move and invest resources via underground banking systems and the region's casino industry
- improving cooperation to stop the flow of people trafficked into scam centres in the region
In the Philippines, UNODC is assisting PAOCC and other relevant agencies involved in fighting scam operations to develop standard operating procedures for victim-centred responses:
- identifying and repatriating victims
- collecting evidence
- taking alleged perpetrators into custody.
UNODC is also working with authorities in their initiative to draft a national strategy against transnational organised crime.
Cambodia: A delegation of prosecutors, investigators and central authorities from various countries visited a raided scam centre in Phnom Penh last December, together with UNODC officials.
Participants discussed mutual legal assistance, extradition, asset recovery and the proper handling of digital evidence across borders - critical aspects in addressing the scam industry.
The timing was deliberate: Cambodia had recently established the Commission for Combating Online Scams (CCOS), a high-level coordinating body chaired by the Prime Minister with representatives from 25 ministries and the authority to work with armed forces and law enforcement across the country.
Towards implementing a global response to fraud
Despite increased attention and local law enforcement efforts, scam centres continue to operate, often simply relocating when one compound is raided. While governments race to chase the crime, victims continue to lose billions. This week's Global Fraud Summit focused on exactly that challenge: translating political will into concrete, long-term impact.
Global leaders discussed priorities, aligned responses and advanced solutions, but officials stress the next phase requires operational follow-through:
- joint cross-border operations
- coordinated prosecutions
- real-time intelligence sharing
'They take your money and they take your soul'
Mr. Sawyer said that he and his wife, along with hundreds of victims, feel let down by the response they got from banks and governments.
"The scammer works twice: they take your money and they take your soul. They really do. They take your self-worth. And then, you feel like you're being scammed again, by authorities' lack of response," he said.
He hopes that as countries share solutions, engage in international cooperation and draw more global attention to the issue, victims like him can benefit from responses that have already worked in other countries.
Find out what UNODC is doing to address these and other crimes here .
