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November 11, 2025
 

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ORGANIZED CRIME

Buildings are adorned with advertisements for gambling sites and what appears to be Starlink satellite dishes at KK Park complex in Myanmar's eastern Myawaddy township, as pictured from Mae Sot district in Thailand's border province of Tak on Sept. 17.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Nov 9, 2025
Myanmar junta says demolishing 150 scam hub buildings
Experts say the raids are likely limited, choreographed and intentionally publicized as the junta tries to appear cracking down on scammers while still profiting from them.
People from various countries who were working in the KK Park compound in Myanmar and crossed into Thailand via the Moei river, board a vehicle on Oct. 24 as Thai soldiers keep watch.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Nov 5, 2025
Myanmar scam hub sweep triggers fraudster recruitment rush
Online scam hubs have mushroomed across Southeast Asia, draining victims of billions of dollars annually in elaborate romance and crypto cons.
Cyber-enabled heists rely on social engineering and a knowledge of how the industry works, allowing hackers successfully pass as insiders, according to Proofpoint.
WORLD
Nov 3, 2025
Hackers and crime rings are teaming up to steal cargo, cyber firm says
Such crimes can create massive disruptions to supply chains and cost companies billions, with criminals stealing everything from energy drinks to electronics.
French police officers stand next to a furniture elevator used by robbers to enter the Louvre Museum in Paris on Oct. 19.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Nov 3, 2025
Louvre heist work of petty criminals, not organized crime, prosecutor says
The profiles of the four people under arrest so far are not typical of organized crime professionals capable of executing complex operations, the Paris prosecutor said.
Buildings said to be a scam hub in southeast Myanmar as seen from across the border, in Tak, Thailand, on Feb. 21. Cybercrime hubs in Myanmar, Cambodia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia are part of a sprawling criminal enterprise that has stolen tens of billions of dollars from victims worldwide.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Nov 3, 2025
How an accused kingpin built an empire from Cambodia to London
Chen Zhi had cultivated for himself an image of legitimacy. That's now unraveling, after the U.S. and U.K. accused him of running a transnational criminal ring.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said India has sought Thailand's cooperation in the repatriation of some 500 Indian nationals who fled a Myanmar scam center.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Oct 29, 2025
India to repatriate 500 nationals who fled Myanmar scam center: Thai PM
More than 1,500 people from 28 countries have crossed the border into Thailand following a military raid.
U.S. Marines come ashore from a landing craft utility during training exercises in Arroyo, Puerto Rico, on Oct. 16.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Oct 21, 2025
In Trump's drug war, U.S. officials avoid tackling legal status of prisoners
The U.S. government chose not to use the term "prisoners of war" to describe two survivors of an attack last week by the U.S. military.
Suspect Qian Ling (center), who is believed to be the group's leader, following his re-arrest, in Tokyo's Koto Ward on Thursday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 17, 2025
Tokyo police arrest phone scam group leader
The Metropolitan Police Department suspects that the group was behind at least some 500 phone scam cases committed in half a year through January.
Motorists ride past the Prince International Plaza in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. U.S. authorities on Tuesday unsealed an indictment against Chen Zhi, a British-Cambodian businessperson who owns Prince Group and who is accused of running forced labor camps in Cambodia.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Oct 16, 2025
U.S. and U.K. sanctions target Cambodia's Prince Group and tycoon Chen Zhi
Prince Holding Group, one of Cambodia's largest conglomerates, was a front for "one of Asia's largest transnational criminal organizations," the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Ferries cross the Mekong River in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Oct. 8. U.S. prosecutors have charged Chen Zhi, the chairman of Phnom Penh-based Prince Group, with engaging in a wire-fraud conspiracy and operating a money-laundering scheme.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Oct 15, 2025
U.S. seizes $15B in bitcoin and charges Cambodian mogul with cyberfraud
Prince Group Chairman Chen Zhi, who was born in China but emigrated to Cambodia, is not in custody and remains at large.
Alleged victims of Myanmar's scam centers in the process of repatriation on Feb. 12. Fraud factories in Myanmar blamed for scamming Chinese and American victims out of billions of dollars are still in business and bigger than ever.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Oct 14, 2025
Myanmar scam cities booming despite crackdown — using Musk's Starlink
China, Thailand and Myanmar had pressured militias into vowing to "eradicate" the compounds in February, releasing around 7,000 people from a brutal call center-like system.
Ana and Maria, (not their real names), victims of sex trafficking from Latin America, clean dishes in Tirane on Aug. 1.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Oct 7, 2025
'I found hell': the women ensnared in Albania's global sex trade
Empowered by the global reach of cybercrime, criminal networks are using Albania as a transit point to exploit women from other nations around the world.
National Police Agency Commissioner-General Yoshinobu Kusunoki (right) hands a letter of appointment to Akira Uno, head of the agency's newly created information analysis office, at the agency in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 1, 2025
Police in Japan launch teams to combat tokuryū crime groups
Members of the groups are connected through social media for illegal activities such as fraud and robbery.
A street in Naha in August. In entertainment districts in southern Okinawa, a drug known as "laughing gas vape" is being abused at nightclubs and bar. Now, some establishments have put up warning notices.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Sep 22, 2025
Abuse of 'zombie cigarettes' among Okinawa youths raises alarm
"Laughing gas vape," inhaled using devices resembling e-cigarettes, can cause its users to lose control.
Yasuhiro Tsuyuki, former commissioner-general of Japan's National Police Agency, speaks during an interview on Aug. 12 in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 21, 2025
Ex-police chief pins hopes on new 'tokuryū' measures
Conventional methods do not work against such groups because they recruit using encrypted social media apps, making it difficult to identify the ringleaders.
ChatGPT owner OpenAI says it "actively works to identify and disrupt scam-related misuse of ChatGPT.”
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Sep 19, 2025
ChatGPT was used ‘to help scammers do their thing’ at Asia fraud compound
Scammers used the artificial intelligence tool to craft convincing messages designed to trick people into parting with their money.
Akira Sanbonchiku (second from left), a member of the "JP Dragon" crime ring, is transported from the Philippines to Narita Airport in Chiba Prefecture on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 11, 2025
Six 'JP Dragon' crime ring members arrested after extradition from Philippines
Police believe the six have defrauded at least 250 people in 20 Japanese prefectures out of approximately ¥900 million since around October 2019.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio in June.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 7, 2025
U.S. strike on alleged cartel boat shows Rubio’s influence growing
The attack was the culmination of Trump’s yearslong interest in using unprecedented — and legally questionable — force against drug cartels.
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. walks to the ring for his fight against Jake Paul in Anaheim, California, on June 28.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 25, 2025
Boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. released from prison pending trial
U.S. authorities arrested Chavez in July for being in the United States illegally.
Signs for fast-fashion factories in Prato, Italy, on Friday. Chinese crime groups in the district thrive on the "Prato system" rife with corruption in the fast-fashion sector.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 4, 2025
Italy's fast fashion hub becomes Chinese mafia battlefield
Gangs are battling to control Prato's production of clothes hangers — a market estimated to be worth €100 million ($115 million) — and the bigger prize of transporting apparel.
Tsunami threat passes following magnitude 6.9 quake off Iwate
A tsunami advisory was issued for Iwate Prefecture on Sunday evening following a strong earthquake. The advisory was later called off, after waves measuring 20 centimeters were recorded in some areas.
Japan to subsidize demolition of abandoned inns
Abandoned Japanese-style inns in the Kinugawa hot springs resort in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, in March 2023
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years
Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Takaichi stands firm on controversial Taiwan contingency remarks
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi responds to questions during a session of the House of Representatives' Budget Committee in parliament in Tokyo on Monday.
From France to Mali, a deportee's struggle far from home
Moussa Sacko, a Malian deported from France — where he had lived since he was a young child — stands on a street in Bamako, Mali, in December. Compared with his home in France, Bamako feels like a different planet, Sacko said.
Florist Nicolai Bergmann flourishes outside the box
Florist Nicolai Bergmann shops for fresh flowers at the Ota flower market in Tokyo on Friday.
Jenson Button brings end to an illustrious racing career intertwined with Japan
Jenson Button races for Honda during the Singapore Grand Prix in September 2008.
Cleanliness gets competitive at Tokyo’s Spogomi world cup
On Oct. 29, teams from 33 qualifying countries scoured the streets of Shibuya for all manners of trash as part of the Spogomi litter-picking competition.
Jon Homewood: ‘There’s beauty in what we throw away’
After a peripatetic childhood around the world, teacher and artist Jon Homewood ended up coming to Japan in 2012 for a professional opportunity.
High-speed rail is expensive and difficult, but seen as a key to growth
Achal Khare, former managing director at India’s National High Speed Rail Corporation, gives a presentation during the IHRA Forum 2025 in Tokyo on Oct. 23.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years
By Yukana Inoue

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