By Yantoultra Ngui
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Criminal organizations that fueled an “explosion” of human trafficking centers and cyber scams during the pandemic have expanded from Southeast Asia to form a global network earning up to $3 trillion per year, the head of Interpol said on Wednesday.
“Driven by online anonymity, inspired by new business models and accelerated by Covid, these organized criminal groups are now working on a scale that was unimaginable ten years ago,” Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock said in a briefing at the global policing coordination body in Singapore. office.
“What started as a regional crime threat in Southeast Asia has become a global human trafficking crisis, with millions of victims, both in cyber scam centers and as targets.”
The new cyber-scam centers, often run by reluctant staff trafficked with the promise of legitimate jobs, have helped organized crime groups diversify their drug trafficking revenues, Stock said.
Drug trafficking enterprises still contribute 40% to 70% of criminal groups’ revenue, he said.
“But we see groups clearly diversifying their criminal activities by using drug trafficking routes to include human trafficking, weapons trafficking, intellectual property, stolen products, car thefts,” Stock said.
Every year, $2 to $3 trillion in illicit proceeds are funneled through the global financial system, adding that an organized criminal group can earn $50 billion a year.
The United Nations said last year that more than 100,000 people had been trafficked to online scam centers in Cambodia. In November, Myanmar handed over to China thousands of fugitives suspected of fraud in the Chinese telecom sector.
A Reuters investigation last year detailed the emergence in Thailand of an offshoot of this alleged cybercrime and its financing.
Stock praised Singapore for its success last year in uncovering a money laundering case involving seized assets worth more than S$3 billion ($2.23 billion).