스캠범죄 단속 ‘풍선효과’…중동·아프리카까지 진출

A phenomenon known as "balloon effect" is emerging as scamming organizations are moving their operations to different Southeast Asian countries, the Middle East, and Africa to evade strict monitoring. Government officials expressed concern over this trend on the 13th day of the month. A 80-year-old Korean man was reportedly arrested at a Middle Eastern airport after being promised documents by someone claiming to be a UN employee, only to find the contents of the bag unknown.

Another 70-year-old man received a gift from a woman he met online, leading him to travel to an African country and hand over a bag containing suspected drugs at the airport. According to data released by the Foreign Ministry, 462 Korean nationals were detained for suspected involvement in online scams, drugs, and online gambling across six Southeast Asian countries (Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Laos) in the first half of this year.

This is more than the 356 individuals detained in the previous year across the same six countries. Organizations are believed to primarily move to relatively well-off countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Malaysia, for example, recently arrested 24 Korean nationals in one apartment complex for online gambling. Countries with weak regulations and inadequate local police response, or countries with lax border surveillance, are also more likely to become bases for criminal organizations.

Recently, the remote island nation of Timor-Leste has emerged as a new hotspot for criminal activity, while comparatively weak surveillance in eastern Surabaya, Indonesia, has reportedly facilitated Chinese-led cross-border criminal operations. The Foreign Ministry is reinforcing information sharing and cooperation among relevant countries' officials, establishing the "Cross-Border Crime Coordination Group" to enable 18 Southeast Asian countries, 10 Chinese countries, and regional countries to share key developments in their respective capitals.