Cybercrime, Human Trafficking, and Dirty Money: Why Financial Integrity Must Mean Human Integrity

By Dr Stephen Morse, Unchained Solutions, Sydney

Cybercrime is now one of the world’s fastest-growing underground economies — and it thrives on human exploitation. Across Southeast Asia, industrial-scale scam compounds blend forced labour, technology, and criminal enterprise. According to Interpol, these operations, which expanded significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, now generate up to 3 trillion USD annually. [1.]

A 2023 UNODC report estimates that scam centres in just one Mekong-region country generate between USD 7.5 and 12.5 billion per year [2.]  — half that nation’s GDP. Victims are typically young, educated workers with ICT skills, trapped through false job offers and forced into online fraud. These centres are the digital front lines of human trafficking.

In Australia, the impacts are closer than we think. Scams cost Australians over 3.1 billion USD in 2023 — an 80% rise since 2021 [3]. But financial losses are only part of the harm. Each scam transaction represents a hidden supply chain of violence, crime, and illicit finance that runs through our banks, property markets, and investment systems.

At the Financial Integrity Hub Summit in Sydney, as experts discussed anti-money laundering (AML) reform and compliance, a troubling question emerged for me: are we protecting people as well as financial systems? 

In 2024, through the Law Institute of Victoria’s “Follow the Money” series, I argued that AML should be viewed not just as a regulatory requirement but as a frontline tool against modern slavery. Human trafficking is often siloed as a social or criminal issue, yet traffickers exploit people for profit — and financial systems inadvertently enable these profits to circulate.

From Westpac’s 1.3 billion AUD fine in 2019 [4.] to the Huione Pay scandal in Cambodia [5.] and Singapore’s 2.2 billion USD seizure in 2023 [6.] , case studies reveal how easily illicit funds move through legitimate channels.

That’s why the Commonwealth 8.7 Network promotes integrating human rights into financial due diligence. Embedding human rights risks into AML processes — via audits, staff training, and sector-specific monitoring — means identifying red flags in industries beyond the traditional ones, including technology and cybersecurity.

Financial integrity cannot be separated from human integrity. If we fail to see the people behind the profits, we risk becoming silent partners in exploitation.

[1.]  Reuters, March 27, 2024

[2.] UNODC, Casinos, cyber fraud, and trafficking in persons for forced criminality in

Southeast Asia, Policy Report, September 2023

[3.] Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Targeting Scams: Report of the ACCC on Scam Activity 2022, May 2023

[4.] Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Westpac hit with record 1.3 billion USD fine over money laundering breaches, 24 September 2020

[5.] Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Cambodia: Huione Pay’s banking licence withdrawn following allegations of money laundering and illicit activities including facilitating scams, 12 March 2025

[6.] Financial Times, Singapore police seize S$3bn in assets in city-state’s largest money-laundering case, 20 August 2023