Southeast Asia’s multibillion-dollar scam industry refuses to die: ‘everyone gets a cut’

Name: The Chinese criminal gangs behind Southeast Asia’s scam centres
Uploaded: 2025-12-08T00:00:13.000Z
Duration: 8 min 49 s
Description: The Chinese criminal gangs behind Southeast Asia’s scam centres

Authorities are seizing assets and raiding compounds, but analysts warn the clumsy crackdown is merely scattering syndicates to new hideouts

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

A convoy of Lamborghinis leaves Bangkok en route to Pattaya. Scam proceeds wash up in the pool villas of Bangkok, the restaurants of Phnom Penh and the supercars of Vientiane. Photo: AFP

Aidan JonesandDon Pathan

Published: 8:00am, 8 Dec 2025Updated: 9:51am, 8 Dec 2025

Taking a short cut through Pattaya’s “Scammer Alley”, a neon maze of bars, hotpot restaurants and 24-hour Korean barbecue joints, taxi driver May shakes her head.

The money washing around this Thai resort is so thick with fraud that even her own bank account has been frozen.

“They pay with QR codes linked to mule accounts,” she said, referring to bank accounts legally registered under Thai names but secretly controlled by the foreign cybercriminals who have turned this part of Southeast Asia into a scam empire.

Across Thailand, banks have frozen tens of thousands of suspected “mule” accounts in recent months. Yet the crackdown has also trapped hundreds of ordinary people like May in a bureaucratic dragnet.

“It's not just me, ask every driver, every small business here,” she told This Week in Asia, giving only one name for fear of losing her access to funds entirely. “They’re all being frozen out.”

08:49

The Chinese criminal gangs behind Southeast Asia’s scam centres

Hers is just one story in the wider Mekong region now awash with billions of dollars in stolen funds churned out each year by sprawling cyber-fraud operations.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x