Behind the glow of a Telegram chat window, a victim lured by a fake job offer and trafficked into a Southeast Asian scam compound is coerced under violence, running romance scams against strangers half a world away. The wallet collecting the proceeds lies on a public blockchain, and this is just one of the many Southeast Asia crypto scams happening today.

This is also one of the uncomfortable intersections Chainalysis maps out in its 2026 Crypto Crime Report. Its data indicates that cryptocurrency flows to suspected human trafficking services reached hundreds of millions of dollars in 2025, an 85% YoY growth.

The growth is tracked to the expansion of Southeast Asia’s illicit ecosystem.

It’s the very region where scam compounds, online casinos and gambling sites, and Chinese-language money-laundering and guarantee networks, operating primarily over Telegram, feed off each other in an accelerating regional underworld with global reach.

A Human-Trafficking/Crypto Trade That Runs Like a Business

Chainalysis tracked four categories of suspected cryptocurrency-facilitated trafficking: Telegram-based “international escort” services suspected of trafficking in people, “labour placement” agents that facilitate kidnapping and forced labour for scam compounds, suspected exploitative prostitution networks, and vendors of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Escort and Prostitution Networks Run Almost Entirely on Stablecoins

Nearly half (48.8%) of transfers linked to “international escort” services exceeded US$10,000, a concentration the report says points to organised criminal enterprises operating at scale.

“International escort” services and prostitution networks operated on an almost exclusive level via stablecoins. This seemed to suggest that they emphasised payment stability and ease of conversion over the risks of these assets being frozen by centralised issuers.

Services were found to be closely tied to Chinese-language money laundering networks, which rapidly enable the conversion of USD stablecoins into local currencies. In doing so, these entities potentially blunt the risk that assets held in stablecoins might be frozen, the report indicated.

Scam Compound Recruitment Leaves a Traceable Trail

“Labour placement” agent scam operations, especially pig butchering schemes, are deeply intertwined with human trafficking. Victims are lured with fraudulent job offers, then trafficked to scam compounds across Southeast Asia, where they are forced to run romance and investment scams under the threat of violence.

Blockchain analysis reveals that recruitment payments typically fall between $1,000 and $10,000, consistent with advertised pricing tiers. This creates identifiable transaction patterns that can be used to detect suspicious activity at scale.

These agents also spread their presence across multiple guarantee platforms to maximise reach, with some operating through mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges.

CSAM Vendors Turn to Monero and Instant Exchangers

Child sexual abuse material vendors, meanwhile, had a tendency to collect payments in mainstream cryptocurrencies. Chainalysis observed that they started using Monero more to launder their proceeds.

Instant exchangers, services that allow fast, anonymous crypto swaps with no KYC checks, became a key tool in this process.

SEA Trafficking Networks Go Global on Cryptocurrency

In 2025, mapping where “international escort” services operate shows that Southeast Asian services, particularly those run in the Chinese language, have expanded worldwide by using cryptocurrency.

Based on Chainalysis’ data, Chinese-language services operating across mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and several Southeast Asian countries have built advanced payment systems and a wide international presence.

Large-scale cryptocurrency transactions come in from countries like Brazil, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Australia. The wide range of countries involved suggests these networks have built the infrastructure needed to operate on a global scale.”

As blockchain technology is transparent by nature, this makes it a useful tool for detecting and stopping these activities.

Compliance teams and law enforcement can watch for certain warning signs for Southeast Asia crypto scams, such as high-volume transactions through guarantee platforms, wallet clusters linked to multiple types of illicit services, recurring patterns of converting funds to stablecoins, and connections to Telegram channels used for recruitment.

Featured image edited by Fintech News Singapore based on an image by kues1 on Magnific