Security News > 2024 > January > China’s gambling crackdown spawned wave of illegal online casinos and crypto-crime in Asia

Global crime networks have set up shop in autonomous territories run by armed gangs across Southeast Asia, and are using them to host physical and online casinos that, in concert with crypto exchanges, have led to an explosion of money laundering, cyberfraud, and cybercrime across the region and beyond.

The scenario above was outlined on Monday by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in a new report [PDF] titled "Casinos, Money Laundering, Underground Banking, and Transnational Organized Crime in East and Southeast Asia: A Hidden and Accelerating Threat."

The UN report suggests that after China's crackdown, junket operators started working with, or operating, illegal casinos operating in what the report describes as "Loosely regulated and highly vulnerable jurisdictions including Cambodia, Lao PDR, and the Philippines, as well as several border areas controlled by armed groups in Myanmar."

"Casinos and related high-cash-volume businesses have been vehicles for underground banking and money laundering for years, but the explosion of underregulated online gambling platforms and crypto exchanges has changed the game," said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

"Organized crime groups have converged where they see vulnerabilities, and casinos and crypto have proven the point of least resistance," Douglas added.

Not just Asia: the report states that some organized crime groups are running illegal online casinos in the United Arab Emirates, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Pacific.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/16/un_asia_tech_crime_report/