The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has agreed to crack down on illegal online gambling, which exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Representatives of member states met in Langkawi, Malaysia on 19 January. Malaysian minister and event chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said Beijing has offered to join the fight. In Southeast Asia, most online gambling operations target the Chinese mainland, where gambling is illegal.
In a statement, ASEAN officials “reaffirmed our collective resolve to combat transnational crime, including people smuggling, trafficking in persons, drug trafficking, cybercrime, money laundering and the growing threat of online scams.”
The organisation has formed a working group to study money laundering and a computer emergency response team (CERT) based in Singapore. Members will share CERT-related information to better identify and neutralise online threats.
Illegal igaming poses “severe risk”
In a 2024 report, the Washington, DC-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said online gambling “poses severe risks to individual (ASEAN) countries and Southeast Asia overall”.
The report blamed “the transnational nature of online gambling, lax governance at the national level and ASEAN’s fractured regulatory environment”.
Even legal online gaming operations, licensed and regulated by the government, can go wrong. Case in point: the Philippines.
In 2016, former president Rodrigo Duterte welcomed Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) as post-Covid cash cows. But over the years, POGOs became havens for cyberfraud, online scams, kidnapping and torture. They turned the country into “a playground” for “criminal activities” said Philippine senator Risa Hontiveros.
Last July, Duterte’s successor at Malacañang, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, banned the industry outright.
The human cost
Likewise, the online gambling boom has turned Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos into hubs of online scam operations. They are often run by trafficked workers.
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a US Congress think tank, says the workers are often “duped by fraudulent online ads for lucrative high-tech jobs and trafficked illegally into scam compounds…. (I)n prison-like conditions, they must run online romance and investment scams.
Workers freed from Philippine POGOs last year reported that they faced beatings or worse if they failed to meet their quotas. Of course, there are victims at the other end of the transactions, people who fall prey to these scams.
Meanwhile, the military “or its proxies” protect active compounds in Myanmar, the USIP reports. In Cambodia, casinos and hotels left vacant by Covid-19 now house boiler rooms for online scams. In Laos, criminal operators have swarmed special economic zones, like one in the infamous Golden Triangle.
China offers to collaborate
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi has urged the ASEAN countries to “decisively tackle these crimes” according to the New Straits Times.
In preliminary talks with Wang, “We touched on how best we can strengthen the ASEAN family,” said minister Mohamad. “Looking at the current geopolitical and geoeconomic situation around the world, I believe it would be a missed opportunity if ASEAN doesn’t come together.”
ASEAN member states include Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Timor-Leste applied to become the 11th member of the organisation.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/offshore-gaming/asean-nations-to-combat-illegal-igaming-related-crime/
