Timorese authorities raided a suspected scam centre in late August, raising concerns about the increasing prevalence of such operations in the region and what it could mean for the country, reports the Associated Press (AP).
The late-August raid targeted a suspected scam centre in a relatively new free trade zone in Oecusse, a Timorese exclave on the Indonesian side of Timor Island. Timorese police detained more than 30 foreigners working at the site without permission.
A report released by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said it was unclear if the workers, who came from Indonesia, Malaysia and China, had been trafficked.
“The scale and nature of the activity we are now seeing – similar to what we were seeing at the earlier stages of Southeast Asia’s scam industry – shows how far things have progressed,” Benedikt Hofmann, deputy regional representative at UNODC for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, told the AP.
[See more: Timor-Leste enters the offshore gambling arena]
The rapid development of activities in the country, he explained, are especially concerning given the boost in connectivity Timor-Leste will get when it becomes a full member of ASEAN in October.
The timeline for the Timor-Leste scam centre, according to the UNODC, begins in December 2024 with the creation of the Oecusse Digital Centre, a free trade zone in the enclave. Regulatory vulnerabilities in the country, particularly in the new free trade zone, “may enable organised crime to operate under the guise of legitimate [foreign direct] investment.”
Timorese authorities first detected the foreign workers in May, confirming their illegal employment on 22 August. Within days, the suspected scam centre was raided.
The UNODC said other companies with apparent links to scam networks were also found to be active in the region, where there has been a proliferation of scam centres in recent years. Free trade zones like the one in Oecusse are often exploited to facilitate cyber-enabled scams, money laundering and other crimes.
