Interpol: Human trafficking in Southeast Asia has gone global

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Organized crime networks that fueled an “explosion” of human trafficking and cyber fraud hubs during the pandemic have expanded from Southeast Asia to a global network whose turnover reaches 3 trillion dollars (2.77 trillion euros) per year, the head of Interpol said on Wednesday.

“Driven by online anonymity, inspired by new business models and accelerated by COVID, these organized crime groups are now working on a scale unimaginable a decade ago,” said Jurgen Stock, Secretary General of Interpol, during a briefing held at the Singapore office of the Global Police Coordination Organization.

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

According to Jurgen Stock, new cyber fraud centers, often staffed by unwitting employees who are lured into legitimate jobs, have helped organized crime groups diversify their income from drug trafficking.

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Jurgen Stock explained that drug trafficking still represents 40 to 70% of criminal groups’ income.

“We see that groups are clearly diversifying their criminal activities by using drug trafficking routes also for human trafficking, arms trafficking, intellectual property, stolen goods, car theft,” said Jürgen Stock.

About $2 trillion to $3 trillion in illicit proceeds pass through the global financial system each year, he said, adding that an organized crime group can earn $50 billion a year.

The U.N. said last year that more than 100,000 people were trafficked into online scam hubs in Cambodia. In November, Myanmar handed over thousands of Chinese suspected of telecommunications fraud to China.

(Reporting Yantoultra Ngui; French version Lina Golovnya, editing by Zhifan Liu)