Foreign scammers arrested in Timor-Leste are returning to their illicit activities after being convicted in local courts and paying modest fines, police say, highlighting the challenges the tiny Southeast Asian country faces combatting a surge in cyberfraud operations.
As an example of the problem, a spokesperson for the National Police of Timor-Leste cited the 18 foreign nationals detained last month in raids on two alleged scam centers in the country’s capital, Dili, that police announced on social media.
According to the police announcements, all arrested in those raids had previously engaged in similar criminal activities and “been processed under the law in force. Timor-Leste police spokesman Angelo Quelo told OCCRP that some of them had even been arrested and convicted twice before.
“If people commit a crime twice or third [time], then we should send them to prison,” Quelo said in an interview with OCCRP this week.
Among the 18 suspects, 14 had been released after each paying a fine of $3,000, while the other four suspects were released after their charges were dismissed, he said.
Quelo said the majority of those found guilty of cyberfraud and ordered to pay fines had been charged under an article of the nation’s penal code relating to “criminal association.” Convicted scammers in Timor-Leste are typically ordered to pay fines ranging from $2,500 to $10,000, he added.
This is a comparatively small sum for those involved in the lucrative illicit scam industry, which a July United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report estimated stole between $88.3 billion and $114.1 from people in the Asia-Pacific last year.
Since July, Timor-Leste police have arrested 448 people for their links to scam centers, seizing 62 Starlink satellite communication terminals, along with hundreds of computers and mobile phones, Quelo said.
Among those arrested, 211 were Chinese nationals and 181 were Indonesians, he said, adding that 53 people arrested in connection to cyberfraud were currently in detention and awaiting trial.
Timor-Leste authorities are struggling with the large number of offenders arrested for scam activities, said Nelson Belo, the director of Fundasaun Mahein, a Timor-Leste civil society group focusing on security issues.
“The police haven’t really suppressed the problem. They are overwhelmed and under-experienced,” Belo told OCCRP. “We don’t have cyber fraud laws yet and the court often says there is not enough evidence to convict under existing laws. Also, the judicial actors are not experienced.”
The country’s government presented draft laws to tackle cybercrime to parliament in July.
Another law enforcement body, the Scientific Criminal Investigation Police (PCIC), has also been involved in disrupting scam operations in Timor-Leste. However, there is a lack of cooperation between the national police and the PCIC, Quelo said.
“The police do the police side and, from the civilian people, the PCIC, they do their things,” he said. “We always say if they come to us to cooperate, then it will be fine.”
A PCIC spokesman did not respond to an OCCRP request for an interview.
The UNODC’s July report highlighted Timor-Leste’s susceptibility to the industrial-scale scam operations that have taken root in other countries in the region, noting: “The country’s dollarized economy, porous borders, and limited financial intelligence capacity create conditions that closely replicate the early vulnerabilities exploited in Cambodia and Myanmar, making Timor-Leste’s trajectory a matter of acute concern for regional crime prevention.”
The government minister overseeing Timor-Leste’s intelligence agency, Agio Pereira, raised the alarm as far back as September 2025 in a “manifesto” that warned that foreign criminal organizations had corrupted the country’s legal system, co-opted regulatory bodies, and bought its politicians.
OCCRP revealed in April that individuals sanctioned by the U.S. government in a crackdown on the alleged Cambodia-based scam syndicate Prince Group were involved in a planned crypto resort to be built in Timor Leste. Prince Group has denied it is involved in scams, calling the allegations “baseless.”
Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-16