Southeast Asian leaders, with US and Chinese counterparts, will renew
alarm over online scams
[November 13, 2026] By
JIM GOMEZ
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Southeast Asian leaders and their key
counterparts, including from the United States and China, will renew
their alarm over the escalating threat of online scams, according to a
draft statement seen by The Associated Press on Friday.
Such transnational crimes, which have swindled billions of dollars from
people in Asia to the United States and elsewhere, will be high in the
agenda when leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations gather
in an annual summit with their Asian and Western counterparts on Tuesday
in the Philippine capital.
The Philippines currently holds the rotating leadership of ASEAN, an
11-nation bloc in a poverty-stricken region where criminal groups have
used technology and resorted to human trafficking to expand their
illicit and lucrative operations to other parts of the world.
The leaders of the expanded ASEAN bloc, called the East Asia Summit,
will express their “grave concern over the escalating threat posed by
transnational criminal organizations inflicting harm through online
scams, including those originating from scam center operations and
associated criminal conduct such as human trafficking,” according to a
draft of their joint statement to be issued after their summit.
They acknowledged “the exploitation of digital and other advanced
technologies and digital financial platforms, by increasingly
sophisticated criminal actors and the need to strengthen financial and
digital systems, as well as the severe human consequences associated
with scam centers.”
Authorities in Southeast Asia have reported in recent years how large
numbers of workers, who were lured by recruitment syndicates into
working in online scam centers, including in the Philippines and
Cambodia, have been subjected to threats and even torture when they
tried to escape or defy orders.
Aside from sharing of information and strengthening law enforcement
coordination, the leaders will encourage “the sharing of threat
assessments and best practices" as well as strengthening cooperation
between relevant authorities in dismantling scam centers, the leaders
said in their draft statement, without elaborating.
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A Thai soldier walks inside a work station at a scam compound in
O'Smach, Cambodia, April 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File,
File)
 In July, the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime reported how Southeast Asia-based criminal groups
have increasingly used integrated networks and technology to expand
to other regions. The scams caused estimated combined losses of
$88.3 billion to $114.1 billion in 2025, according to the report.
Criminals are using new technologies to launder money through global
financial systems and using artificial intelligence to steal from
victims worldwide, the U.N. report said.
East Asian crime syndicates are running businesses that use malware,
generative AI and deepfakes for sexual extortion and exploitation in
a trend that increases the risks of in-person as well as
livestreamed abuse. Apart from outright trafficking for the sex
industry, victims can be sold into domestic servitude, forced
begging and forced labor, among other forms of exploitation, the
report said.
The East Asia Summit leaders meeting in Manila will underscore “the
need to address underlying drivers and other related factors of
online scams," such as poverty, lack of social protection
interventions, outdated domestic laws, private and public
coordination gaps, corruption and limited economic opportunities.
They will stress that government responses to online scams must be
consistent with international law and respect human rights.
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