Southeast Asian leaders, with US and Chinese counterparts, will renew alarm over online scams

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MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Southeast Asian leaders and their key counterparts, including from the United States and China, will renew their alarm over the escalating threat of…

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Southeast Asian leaders and their key counterparts, including from the United States and China, will renew their alarm over the escalating threat of online scams, according to a draft statement seen by The Associated Press on Friday.

Such transnational crimes, which have swindled billions of dollars from people in Asia to the United States and elsewhere, will be high in the agenda when leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations gather in an annual summit with their Asian and Western counterparts on Tuesday in the Philippine capital.

The Philippines currently holds the rotating leadership of ASEAN, an 11-nation bloc in a poverty-stricken region where criminal groups have used technology and resorted to human trafficking to expand their illicit and lucrative operations to other parts of the world.

The leaders of the expanded ASEAN bloc, called the East Asia Summit, will express their “grave concern over the escalating threat posed by transnational criminal organizations inflicting harm through online scams, including those originating from scam center operations and associated criminal conduct such as human trafficking,” according to a draft of their joint statement to be issued after their summit.

They acknowledged “the exploitation of digital and other advanced technologies and digital financial platforms, by increasingly sophisticated criminal actors and the need to strengthen financial and digital systems, as well as the severe human consequences associated with scam centers.”

Authorities in Southeast Asia have reported in recent years how large numbers of workers, who were lured by recruitment syndicates into working in online scam centers, including in the Philippines and Cambodia, have been subjected to threats and even torture when they tried to escape or defy orders.

Aside from sharing of information and strengthening law enforcement coordination, the leaders will encourage “the sharing of threat assessments and best…

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