From Asia Financial, January 18:
Top UN police official warns that criminal gangs are using underground banking systems which have “super-charged” the illicit economy in East Asia
China and Southeast Asia have seen an explosion in transnational organized crime that has been “super-charged” by illegal online casinos, underground banking systems, cryptocurrency and the civil war in Myanmar, according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
An analysis published by the UNODC this week said over 340 licensed and unlicensed land-based casinos were operating in Southeast Asia as early as 2022, most of which have now shifted online, and utilize the vast underground banking and money laundering infrastructure in the ASEAN region and East Asia.
UNODC regional chief Jeremy Douglas, who spoke at a press conference in Bangkok on Wednesday night, said casinos in Southeast Asia were clustered in special economic zones (SEZs) along the China-Myanmar border, plus areas near the borders of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
Douglas said the Covid-19 crisis led to an dramatic expansion in online gambling and the technology used by online casinos had been adopted by criminal groups who set up cyber-scam operations in SEZs near the China-Myanmar border and other countries in the region in recent years.Chinese triads and criminal gangs were using infrastructure set up by online casinos as an underground banking system “and that infrastructure has super-charged the overall illicit economy of this region, including the drugs economy,” Douglas said....
....MUCH MORE
That's the second reference to the triads I've seen in the last couple months. I had thought they were going the way of the Yakuza in Japan: "Making a slow getaway: Japan's anti-yakuza laws result in cohort of ageing gangsters".Here's the other triad story, they've apparently taken control of the dope business in Maine, USA:
Triad Weed: How Chinese Marijuana Grows Took Over Rural Maine
