— Why this matters
Corruption fuels some of Southeast Asia’s most urgent problems, from human trafficking and environmental destruction to public fraud, abuse of power, and attacks on human rights. Yet reporting on corruption has become increasingly difficult as journalists face harassment, shrinking newsroom resources, disinformation campaigns, and limited access to public information.
The Journalists Against Corruption (JAC) is a regional network of journalists committed to investigating and exposing corruption across Southeast Asia. Formed in Manila in 2024, JAC brings together reporters, editors, and investigative media organizations from across the region to collaborate on cross-border investigations, strengthen anti-corruption reporting, and support journalists working in challenging environments.
JAC aims to serve as a platform for collaborative investigations, training opportunities, knowledge-sharing, and regional solidarity among journalists who believe accountability reporting is essential to democracy and public trust. The network was spearheaded by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)with support from the Government of Sweden and the US International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).
See JAC Launch →Read JAC’s Investigations →
— Investigating Corruption
Reporting Manuals & Guides
GIJN’s Reporter’s Guide to Investigating Organized Crime
This comprehensive multi-chapter guide was written by leading investigative journalists and covers nine key crime areas: money laundering (by OCCRP co-founder Paul Radu), drug trafficking, cybercrime and the dark web, forced disappearances, human trafficking (by Pulitzer Prize-winning AP reporter Martha Mendoza, who exposed forced labor in Southeast Asia’s fishing industry), arms trafficking, environmental crimes, antiquities trafficking, and mafia states/kleptocracies. A handbook for crime and corruption reporters, with practical methods applicable across regions.
How to Uncover Transnational Scam Operations (GIJC25 Panel Guide)
This practical guide, based on a GIJC25 panel featuring Rappler’s Lian Buan and other investigators, covers how to detect scam operations, map their transnational structure, and follow links to money laundering, fraud, political corruption, and human trafficking. It addresses Southeast Asian scam compounds in Myanmar, where thousands of people are forced to conduct phone and online scams.
Compound Crime: Cyber Scam Operations in Southeast Asia
This in-depth report details how repurposed hotels, casinos, and private compounds across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the Philippines have become centers of global fraud run by organized criminal networks. It examines how cyber scams — including “pig-butchering” romance-investment schemes, crypto fraud, impersonation, and sextortion — generate tens of billions annually, and how these operations thrive due to weak rule of law, widespread corruption, and complicity from powerful “role shifters” who blur the lines between government, business, and crime. An essential reference for understanding the structural and political dimensions of scam economies.
ILO Toolkit for Journalists: Reporting on Forced Labour and Fair Recruitment
This free toolkit provides information and advice to media professionals on how to report accurately and effectively on forced labour and fair recruitment. It is available in multiple languages and offers several national editions, contextualized to the specific situation of countries including Vietnam. A migration glossary for journalists has also been adapted into Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Khmer, and Thai. The toolkit covers the legal landscape of migrant worker recruitment, explains why stories of forced labour are often “glocal” in nature — with local exploitation connected to global supply chains — and emphasizes the ethical duty not to use derogatory language or sensationalist headlines, which can revictimize the people reporters are covering.
Media and Trafficking in Human Beings: Guidelines for Journalists
This free toolkit provides information and advice to media professionals on how to report accurately and effectively on forced labour and fair recruitment. It is available in multiple languages and offers several national editions, contextualized to the specific situation of countries including Vietnam. A migration glossary for journalists has also been adapted into Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Khmer, and Thai. The toolkit covers the legal landscape of migrant worker recruitment, explains why stories of forced labour are often “glocal” in nature — with local exploitation connected to global supply chains — and emphasizes the ethical duty not to use derogatory language or sensationalist headlines, which can revictimize the people reporters are covering.
Investigating Corruption
The foundational corruption reporting handbook from Southeast Asia written by PCIJ journalists based entirely on their own investigations in the Philippines, it is structured as a classroom-style manual that can be read chapter by chapter or dipped into by subject. It covers the typology of corruption (petty vs. grand, bribery vs. extortion, embezzlement vs. fraud, favouritism vs. clientelism); investigative strategies for detecting and documenting corruption; how to check officials’ assets, lifestyles, conflicts of interest, and cronies; how to build a human source and documentary paper trail; how to measure corruption quantitatively using surveys, public spending audits, and DIY data collection; how to investigate procurement fraud, including red flags for bribery in government contracts and public works; how to probe corruption in the courts; how to investigate environmental sector corruption; a guide to every Philippine government body tasked with investigating graft; and a survey of civil society anti-corruption organizations and methods.
Follow the Money: A Digital Guide for Tracking Corruption
This handbook demonstrates methods of investigating corruption and organised crime by following money across corporate and jurisdictional boundaries. It includes tips on making sense of complex company ownership schemes, a comprehensive list of international databases for tracing companies across borders, advice on operational security, and guidance on identifying nominees and shell structures — all central to investigating the financial infrastructure of Southeast Asian scam compounds, casino money laundering, and political corruption.
Investigative Reporting on Corruption: A Guide for Media Professionals
The guide is structured as a practical classroom-style manual. It opens with a typology of corruption — distinguishing grand from petty, active from passive, bribery from extortion, embezzlement from fraud, and favouritism from clientelism — and works through the media’s watchdog role, the qualities and tools of an investigative journalist, a seven-rule framework for investigative reporting, and an ethical framework that explicitly addresses the corruption of journalists themselves, including real-life case studies of reporters offered bribes and how they handled them.
— Reporting worth studying
Exemplary Reporting (Outside the JAC network)
— In Numbers
The impact of corruption in southeast asia
120/182
The Philippines’ rank on the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index. Only Cambodia (163rd) and Myanmar (169th) rank lower in the region.
0.895
Cambodia’s political corruption score on the V-Dem index in 2025 — the highest in the region, against a Southeast Asian average of 0.52
$37B
Estimated amount stolen by cybercriminals in Southeast Asia in 2023 alone.
40%
Share of Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos’ combined GDP estimated to be generated by scam-center revenue ($43.8B) in 2023.
300,000+
People estimated to be working in scam operations across SOutheast Asia, per a 2026 UN report describing one of the fastest-growing criminal economies in the world.
AI
Generative AI is now flagged by UNODC as “a powerful force multiplier” for transnational criminal groups, accelerating the scam economy faster than institutions can respond.
— Go Deeper
Datasets, Facts, & Research
US State Department Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Reports – Country Chapters
The most comprehensive open-source dataset on trafficking laws, prosecutions, convictions, and official complicity, published annually.
Global Organized Crime Index
GI-TOC’s index assessing criminality and resilience to organized crime across 193 countries, scoring 13 criminal-market indicators including corruption.
IOM Regional Situation Reports: Trafficking for Forced Criminality in Southeast Asia
Tracks caseloads across the most affected IOM country offices, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Freedom Collaborative Data Spotlight on Trafficking for Forced Criminality
Tracks trafficking for forced criminality, with a focus on Special Economic Zones in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.
UNODC Annual Global Report on Trafficking in Persons
The primary global reference dataset on trafficking trends, with regional breakdowns for East Asia and the Pacific.
Corruption Perceptions Index — Methodological Guide for Journalists
Explains how to correctly read and contextualize the CPI, which measures perceived — not actual — corruption levels.
World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) — Control of Corruption
Composite governance indicators across six dimensions, covering more than 200 economies from 1996-2024.
TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix
Measures commercial bribary across 194 jurisdictions on opportunity, deterrence, transparency, and oversight.
UNODC Anti-Corruption Hub for Southeast Asia — Publications & Data
Reports, datasets, and policy briefs on procurement fraud, beneficial ownership, and the corruption-crime nexus.
— Who to contact
Key Agencies & institutions, by country
- Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC)
- Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT)
- National Bureau of Investigation Anti-Human Trafficking Division
- Philippine National Police Women and Children’s Protection Center (WCPC)
- Commission on Human Rights (CHR)
- Department of Migrant Workers (DMW)
— Beyond one country
Regional & International bodies
INTERPOL
Issues Orange Notices on scam-centre trafficking, coordinates cross-border operations, and publishes crime trend updates.
ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR)
Received a 2023 complaint regarding trafficking victims from every ASEAN country held in scam compounds.
IOM Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Bangkok-based; publishes situation reports, victim caseload data and policy briefs.
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)
Monitor scam compound networks and publishes the annual Organized Crime Index with country profiles.
SEA ACTIONS (Southeast Asia Anti-Corruption Network)
A regional civil society network monitoring anti-corruption agencies and institutional independence across ASEAN.
Alliance Anti-Trafic
Focuses on cross-border return, repatriation and rehabilitation of victims transiting Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar
EOS Collective
Investigates the inner workings of the online scam industry and provides data-driven support to survivors of forced criminality.