Why Asia’s ‘Scamdemic’ Is Everyone’s Problem
Organized crime’s growth industry is scaling exponentially. Washington and Beijing could solve it — if they work together.
Hundreds of people were rescued from online scam centers in Myanmar in February and handed over to Thailand.
Photographer: Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty
What do a Chinese actor, an Illinois widow, and a young Vietnamese man have in common? They’re all victims of scams — once an annoying and seemingly random crime that has scaled up into a global business that cost the world a trillion dollars last year. The breadth of the industry stretches far and wide, stemming from forced labor gulags in the gray-zone borderlands of Southeast Asia.
This is a crisis run by international crime syndicates that no single nation can solve, despite many previous efforts. Ending it will require the US and China to put rivalry aside and cooperate in a region where they both exercise huge influence. The alternative? This shadowy industry will only grow bolder, and harder to stop.