OSCE Asian Partners for Co-operation Group Meeting: Combatting Online Scams
Statement by H.E. Ambassador Ian Biggs, Australia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Organisations in Vienna
2 June 2025
Chair, excellencies, colleagues
I thank the Permanent Representatives of Thailand and Malta for raising this important transnational and transregional challenge.
I also thank our expert speakers—both here today, and at Friday’s Special Workshop—for their valuable insights and contributions to their respective fields.
Australia is deeply concerned by the growth of online scam operations in our region, and their links to transnational and serious organised crime including trafficking persons for forced criminality.
Transnational crime syndicates are operating industrial-scale fraud and scam centres and have been implicated in a range of other illicit activities, including money laundering, human trafficking, forced labour, cyber-crime and sex trafficking.
These centres continue to destroy the lives and livelihoods of victims trafficked for forced criminality into the centres, as well as scamming victims.
Combatting these scam centres is an increasingly critical challenge for Australia, Southeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific, and one with global impacts.
Chair
Cyber scam operations, and cybercrime more broadly, are global threats with significant economic and social costs. Global cooperation is vital to our response.
Australia is pleased to be co-sponsoring a non-paper led by the OSCE on the role of regional organisations in implementing the UN framework for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.
We have consistently called out cyber threats, including those emanating from states such as Russia.
Russia continues to provide a permissive operating environment for cybercriminals operating within its jurisdiction.
We have called on Russia to stop cyber criminals operating out of its territory, and we have imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on Russian cyber criminals.
And we continue to condemn in absolute terms Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law, including the UN Charter.
We believe that all countries are better off in a world where international rules are clear, mutually agreed and consistently followed.
Chair
Australia is working closely with our international partners to share intelligence, identify and disrupt cyber scam syndicates and protect victims in Australia and around the world.
In August last year, the Australian Federal Police announced a global operation, Operation Firestorm, focused on cyber criminals and human traffickers in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.
Australia has 30 Australian Federal Police members permanently based in Southeast Asia, working with partner law enforcement to tackle a range of crimes, including fraud and scam operations.
Australia is working closely with our partners, including through the ASEAN-Australia Counter Trafficking program and the Mekong-Australia Partnership on Transnational Crime, to identify and disrupt cyber scam syndicates, strengthen criminal justice responses and protect victims.
We are also supporting partner countries to reduce cyber risk, strengthen cyber resilience and manage their current and emerging cyber needs through our Southeast Asia and Pacific Cyber Program.
And as co-chairs of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, Australia and Indonesia are building regional capacity to combat these online scam centres.
Australia appreciates cooperation between the Regional Support Office of the Bali Process and the OSCE to jointly develop a policy brief late last year on the emerging nexus between artificial intelligence, trafficking in persons and transnational crime.
Transregional cooperation of this nature is critical.
Domestically, as we heard at last week’s Special Workshop, Australia’s National Anti-Scam Centre is working together with government, industry, other regulators, law enforcement bodies and community organisations to make it more difficult to scam Australians.
And our Scams Prevention Framework, legislated in February of this year, will establish world leading consumer protections against scams. The framework will create new obligations for businesses in sectors targeted by scammers, such as banking, telecommunications and certain digital platforms.
Chair
The proliferation of online scamming and trafficking for forced criminality is deeply concerning and requires global cooperation in response. We welcome these important discussions and look forward to further cooperation with the OSCE, Participating States and Asian Partners.
Thank you.