BANGKOK — Asian crime syndicates behind the multibillion-dollar cyberscam industry are expanding globally including to South America and Africa, as raids in Southeast Asia fail to contain their activities, the United Nations (UN) said in a report on Monday.

Criminal networks that emerged in Southeast Asia in recent years, opening sprawling compounds housing tens of thousands of workers, many trafficked and forced to scam victims around the world, have evolved into a sophisticated global industry, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said.

Even as Southeast Asian governments have intensified a crackdown, syndicates have moved within and beyond the region, the agency said, adding that a “potentially irreversible spillover has taken place… leaving criminal groups free to pick, choose, and move… as needed.”

“It spreads like a cancer,” said John Wojcik, a regional analyst for UNODC. “Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear; they simply migrate.”

Conservative estimates indicate there are hundreds of large-scale scam farms around the world generating tens of billions of dollars in annual profits, the UNODC said. The agency called on countries to work together and intensify efforts to disrupt the gangs’ financing.

“The regional cyberfraud industry… has outpaced other transnational crimes, given that it is easily scalable and able to reach millions of potential victims online, with no need to move or traffic illicit goods across borders,” said Mr. Wojcik.

The United States alone reported more than $5.6 billion in losses to cryptocurrency scams in 2023, including more than $4 million in so-called pig-butchering scams or romance scams designed to extort money from often elderly and vulnerable people.

‘INFLECTION POINT’
In recent months, authorities from China, where many of the gangs originate, Thailand and Myanmar have led a crackdown on scam operations in lawless areas of the Thai-Myanmar border, with Thailand cutting power, fuel and internet supply to areas housing scam compounds.

But syndicates have adapted, shifting operations between “the most remote, vulnerable, and underprepared parts of Southeast Asia,” especially in Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia, and beyond, exploiting jurisdictions with weak governance and high rates of corruption, the UNODC said.

Raids in parts of Cambodia where the industry is most visible “led to significant expansion in more remote locations,” including the country’s western Koh Kong province, as well as areas bordering Thailand and Vietnam, the UN agency said.

New sites also continue to be developed in Myanmar, it added, a country in the throes of an expanding conflict since the military seized power four years ago.

Spokespeople for the Cambodian government and Myanmar junta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Syndicates have expanded into South America, the U.N. agency said, seeking to enhance money laundering and underground banking partnerships with South American drug cartels.

They are increasingly establishing operations in Africa, including in Zambia, Angola, and Namibia, and in Eastern Europe including Georgia, the agency said.

Gangs have also rapidly diversified their workforce, recruiting people from dozens of nationalities, according to the agency, reflecting how the industry scams targets across the globe and has sought to evade anti-trafficking efforts.

Citizens of more than 50 countries – from Brazil to Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan — were rescued during recent crackdowns on the Thai-Myanmar border.

The international community is at a “critical inflection point,” the UNODC said, urging that failure to address the problem would have “unprecedented consequences for Southeast Asia that reverberate globally”. — Reuters

BEIJING — At Home Plate BBQ, an American-style restaurant in Beijing, staff are reprinting menus. The US-China trade war means American beef — once the star ingredient — will soon be off the table.

Home Plate’s beef, previously sourced entirely from the US, is increasingly Australian. The restaurant uses about 7 to 8 tons of brisket each month, and when the US beef in the freezers is used up in a few weeks, the southern-style BBQ restaurant will only serve meat from Australia.

US beef is one of thousands of casualties in the trade war between the world’s largest trading partners. Even before the battle began, American beef was expensive. Beijing’s 125% retaliatory tariffs, on top of the existing 22%, made it unaffordable.

“It’s essentially just made it very hard for us to continue using US beef,” said Home Plate’s operations director, Charles de Pellette.

While the $125 million a month in US beef exports to China is a sliver of the mammoth goods trade, beef’s disappearance from menus in Beijing is a glimpse of the fate to come for thousands of goods on both sides of the Pacific.

“Once we deplete our stocks, we’ll be switching fully over to Australian M5… We still think that it’s the same taste and quality and flavor, but we’ve had to switch just due to market pressures and the tariffs,” Mr. De Pellette said.

The pork ribs, too, are a-changing. They’ll now come from Canada, he said.

The experience of the restaurant chain, which has three branches in China and was co-founded by a Texan, is being repeated across Beijing restaurants, according to a beef supplier based in the capital who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of discussing tariffs.

“They have to switch to Australian beef — even the American steak restaurants,” the beef supplier said.

Mr. De Pellette declined to disclose how much Home Plate is paying for Australian beef.

US beef was getting expensive before the trade war began in part because of shortages caused by years of dry weather that shrank herds to their smallest since the 1950s. Those higher prices were hard to swallow in China where a weak economy has made consumers especially price conscious.

US brisket prices rose by nearly 50% between last May and March before skyrocketing further after the tariffs — leaving supplies depleted or costs almost double what they were a year earlier.

Australia is looking to fill the gap, including with brisket that’s 40% cheaper. And at Home Plate they’ve had success. Come May, diners will be tucking into Australian beef ribs, brisket, and sausages smoked long and slow in the traditions of Texas and the American South.

“We’ve tested it for a few months and we found that actually it’s just as good and our customers are pretty happy with it,” said Mr. De Pellette. — Reuters

SEOUL — South Korea’s leading presidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung, pledged on Monday to revive legislation to curb abuses by controlling shareholders, as part of a plan to boost the stock market and eliminate the so-called “Korea Discount.”

The liberal candidate announced his pledge to double the value of the country’s main stock index, in an effort to woo the country’s 14 million retail investors, widely known as “ants.”

“I will end the ‘Korea Discount’ era and open the ‘Korea Premium’ era,” said Mr. Lee, who is leading opinion polls for the presidential election in June.

The ‘Korea Discount’ refers to the lower valuations that South Korean companies typically trade on relative to their global peers partly due to the dominance of family-owned conglomerates, which have been criticized for putting their interests ahead of other shareholders.

South Korea’s parliament, controlled by the liberal Democratic Party formerly led by Mr. Lee, passed a revision of the Commercial Act in March that expanded the fiduciary duty of board members to include protecting the interests of minority shareholders.

But South Korea’s acting President Han Duck-soo vetoed the legislation, which he said could impede management’s decision-making and create unnecessary confusion. The country’s business lobby groups also raised objections.

South Korea last year proposed a program to boost the value of listed companies through voluntary measures, such as setting out their own plans to improve shareholder value.

The initiative has been criticized for being too weak, with analysts and investors say amending the Commercial Act would be a more effective way of improving corporate governance and tackling the “Korea Discount.”

Mr. Lee also promised to set out a roadmap for South Korea’s domestic stock market to secure developed market status from global index provider Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI).

South Korea last month lifted a five-year ban on short-selling, which MSCI had cited as a factor hindering foreign access.

Mr. Lee, who was an active stock investor in the past, also vowed to crack down on stock price manipulation and other unfair practices.

South Korea’s KOSPI briefly rose as much as 0.6% after Mr. Lee’s comments, before erasing gains to trade flat as of 0452 GMT. The index has been pressured by political instability stemming from the impeachment of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, as well as US President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs.

On Sunday, Mr. Lee won a landslide victory in the second round of primaries of the Democratic Party, which plans to pick its presidential candidate on April 27.

His popularity rating for the presidential election is over 50%, against 12% for conservative frontrunner Kim Moon-soo, according to a Realmeter poll released on Monday. — Reuters