A new study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has found that crime groups dealing in fake goods, drugs, human trafficking and illicit wildlife trade earn nearly $90 billion in East Asia and the Pacific.
The report, the first comprehensive study of crime in the region, detailed the vast scope of organized crime, its huge profits and its increasingly transnational nature.
The main moneymaking areas for East Asian and Pacific crime groups are people (human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants); narcotic drugs (heroin and methamphetamine); environment (wildlife, wood-based products, electronics waste and ozone-depleting substances); and goods (counterfeit goods and fraudulent medicines).