Gangs netting up to US$3 trillion a year as Southeast Asia human trafficking becomes a global crisis, Interpol says

Human trafficking-fuelled fraud is exploding in Southeast Asia with organized crime rings raking in close to US$3 trillion in illicit revenue annually, the head of Interpol has said in comments that reveal the huge profits being earned by cartels.

One international organized crime group makes $50 billion a year, according to Interpol secretary-general Jurgen Stock, adding that $2 trillion to $3 trillion of illicit money flows through the global financial system annually. To compare, France’s economy is worth $3.1 trillion according to the International Monetary Fund.

While drug trafficking contributes around 40% to 70% of organized crime income, criminal groups are also using those smuggling networks to illegally move humans, arms and stolen products among other things, Stock said.

“Driven by online anonymity, inspired by new business models and accelerated by COVID, these organized crime groups are now working at a scale that was unimaginable a decade ago,” Stock told a briefing at the global police co-ordination body’s Singapore office on Wednesday.

“Today, a bank – or indeed anyone – is less likely to be robbed at gunpoint than via a keyboard by someone on the other side of the world.

“What began as a regional crime threat in Southeast Asia has become a global human trafficking crisis, with millions of victims, both in the cyber scam centers and as targets.”

Interpol says its operations in Asia have led to nearly 3,500 arrests and the seizure of $300 million in illegally earned assets across 34 countries since 2021.

Survivor testimonies, NGO campaigning and media reporting over the past three years have increasingly exposed an explosion in online fraud gangs operating in Southeast Asia, many using de facto slave labor to target people across the globe, including the United States.

Victims from across Asia are often duped into seemingly legitimate jobs around the region and are then trafficked into scam compounds where they face serious abuse, including forced labor, arbitrary detention, degrading treatment or torture – often with minimal or no help from local authorities.

Hundreds of thousands of people are trafficked into online criminality across