A new report has found that casinos, junkets, and cryptocurrency have emerged as a critical piece of the underground banking and money laundering infrastructure in East and Southeast Asia, fuelling transnational organized crime in the region.
The report has revealed that casinos, junkets, and cryptocurrency are playing a significant role in underground banking and money laundering in East and Southeast Asia.
UNODC found that Southeast Asia had over 340 authorized and unauthorized land-based casinos in early 2022. A shift to online platforms offering live dealer streaming and proxy betting services is observed. The formal online gambling market is projected to exceed US $205 billion by 2030, with the Asia Pacific region expected to have the highest market growth of 37% between 2022 and 2026.
Thai authorities have reported that illegal gambling within the country has reached billions of dollars in the first half of 2023. They stated that one of the largest networks under investigation in Thailand was found to have generated over $500 million per month in illegal gambling revenues.
Casinos and related high-cash-volume businesses have been vehicles for underground banking and money laundering for years, but the explosion of underregulated online gambling platforms and crypto exchanges has changed the game.
Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
The study highlights the connection between illegal online casinos, e-junkets, and cryptocurrency exchanges, which have facilitated transnational organized crime in the region. These underground banking mechanisms have allowed major organized crime groups to move and launder large amounts of money, including cryptocurrencies, and integrate criminal proceeds into the financial system.
The report also uncovers evidence of organized crime influence within casino compounds and border areas, including those controlled by armed groups in Myanmar. The study suggests that the expansion of the illicit economy in the region has attracted new networks and service providers to the criminal ecosystem.
From January to November 2023, the Ministry of Public Security of China reported that 391,000 cases of telecommunications and network fraud were successfully resolved. This led to the arrest of 79,000 suspects, including 263 “backbone members or paymasters” of cyberfraud groups. Task forces dispatched in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam were involved in these operations.
