MAY 17 — Scam networks do not disappear when one country cracks down on them. They migrate.
This is the hard lesson now confronting South-east Asia and Sri Lanka alike.
Recent reports indicate that Sri Lanka is increasingly becoming an attractive operational base for cyber scam syndicates displaced from Cambodia, Myanmar and other South-east Asian hotspots.
According to reports carried by regional media on May 17, 2026, Sri Lankan police have arrested more than 1,000 foreigners since the start of the year, mainly from China, Vietnam and India, for alleged involvement in cybercrime activities.
This is a dramatic rise from the 430 arrests recorded throughout the whole of 2024.
This development should alarm not only Colombo but Asean as a whole.
The problem is no longer confined within South-east Asia. It has spilled across the Bay of Bengal into South Asia.
The criminal ecosystem that first flourished in parts of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos is now proving highly adaptive.
When one jurisdiction tightens enforcement, the syndicates simply relocate to another country offering relaxed visa policies, fast internet connectivity, weaker regulatory oversight, cheaper real estate and limited inter-agency coordination.
This is criminal globalisation in its purest form.
The scam compounds operating across Asia are not ordinary criminal enterprises.
They are sophisticated transnational syndicates involving cyber fraud, money laundering, human trafficking, coercive labour practices, encrypted communications, digital extortion and underground banking systems.
Many victims are first deceived with fake job offers before being trafficked into compounds where they are forced to scam others under threats, intimidation and violence.
These criminal networks exploit not only technological loopholes but also governance gaps between countries.
Sri Lanka’s interception of several Chinese nationals allegedly attempting to smuggle hundreds of used mobile phones and laptops is particularly revealing. Such equipment is not used for isolated fraud.
It points to industrial-scale criminal operations requiring logistics chains, financing networks, telecommunications support and organised coordination across borders.
What Asean now faces is no longer a regional nuisance. It is an emerging Asian security threat.
The victims span every layer of society.
Retirees lose their life savings through fake investment platforms. Young people are trapped in online gambling debt.
Students fall prey to cryptocurrency fraud. Migrant workers are trafficked through false employment schemes.
Small and micro business owners are deceived through fake payment systems and online impersonation scams.
The emotional destruction is often as devastating as the financial losses.
Families are shattered.
Trust in digital commerce collapses. Citizens begin to fear online banking systems, e-wallets and digital financial platforms.
The social costs can spread far beyond economics into political distrust and societal anxiety.
This is why Asean must stop treating scam syndicates merely as isolated police matters.
The issue requires a strategic security response at the highest level. Asean centrality cannot merely mean hosting summits, issuing declarations and discussing abstract regionalism.
It must also mean protecting ordinary citizens from the darkest forms of organised digital crime.
A permanent Asean-led anti-scam coordination mechanism is urgently needed.
Such a body should include not only Asean member states but also China, India, Sri Lanka and relevant dialogue partners. Intelligence sharing must become institutionalised rather than ad hoc.
Immigration records, suspicious property rentals, telecom metadata, digital payment trails, shell company registrations and cryptocurrency transactions must all be shared more rapidly between enforcement agencies.
Cybercrime units across Asia should operate with greater interoperability and common legal frameworks.
Financial institutions must also shoulder greater responsibility.
Banks, payment gateways, cryptocurrency exchanges and digital wallet operators cannot continue claiming neutrality while massive fraud networks move billions of dollars through shadow systems.
Likewise, landlords, visa agents, telecommunications providers and shell companies facilitating these operations should face aggressive scrutiny and legal consequences if found complicit.
Technology itself is now part of the battlefield.
Artificial intelligence, encrypted messaging applications, voice cloning, fake identities and automated phishing systems are enabling criminals to scale their operations at unprecedented speed.
The same digital infrastructure that powers Asia’s economic modernisation is also becoming the backbone of mass deception.
This is why governments must balance digital openness with stronger cyber governance.
At the same time, Asean must avoid a dangerous temptation: simply pushing the problem elsewhere.
If scam syndicates are expelled from one country only to reappear in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal or elsewhere, then the broader Asian region has solved nothing. Sri Lanka must not become the new Cambodia.
Nor should Asean allow itself to be perceived as exporting criminal networks into neighbouring regions once domestic crackdowns intensify.
Such displacement merely internationalises instability. China too has a major role to play.
Many victims remain Chinese citizens, while numerous suspects involved in these operations originate from various Chinese-speaking criminal networks. Beijing has already cooperated extensively with Asean states in previous anti-scam operations.
That cooperation must now deepen further with South Asian partners. India too cannot remain detached.
Given its enormous digital economy and expanding technology sector, India has every interest in preventing South Asia from becoming another operational sanctuary for transnational cyber fraud syndicates.
Ultimately, this is not about blaming one nationality or one country.
It is about confronting organised criminal ecosystems that exploit weak governance, fragmented law enforcement and technological asymmetry.
The core principle must therefore remain simple and uncompromising: scammers operating inside Asean, outside Asean, or moving between Asean and South Asia must be permanently dismantled as organised criminal networks.
Asia cannot allow high-speed internet, mobile technology, encrypted platforms and seamless digital payments to become instruments of industrial-scale fraud and human suffering.
Wipe the scammers out.
* Phar Kim Beng is a professor of Asean Studies and director, Institute of Internationalisation and Asean Studies, International Islamic University of Malaysia.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
