Scam Syndicates Found in Malaysia’s $100B Forest City

A city in Johor, Malaysia, built for 700,000 people, currently has a population thought to be less than 1% of that. Inside this ghost town, alleged scam syndicates set up shop using it as the perfect place to hide.

Scam Syndicates Operated Across 27 Apartments and Five Bungalows

The two call center hubs operated across 27 apartments and five bungalows. According to police, the syndicates were running cryptocurrency investment and romance scams targeting victims abroad.

In mid-July, according to the BBC‘s reporting, Malaysian police raided the alleged scam operations, resulting in the arrest of 335 people and the seizure of $245,000 worth of assets, including phones, computers, and laptops. Those arrested include 309 Chinese nationals, 19 Indonesians, three Malaysians, and four Myanmar nationals.

One Forest City resident, Kevin, told the BBC that the scams were an “open secret,” explaining that the ghost city gave the scammers “their own privacy” as “nobody comes here.”

“The reality is that many of these organisations now resemble multinational corporations more than a traditional organised crime network or gang,” John Wojcik, an analyst at TRM Labs, which investigates crypto-facilitated crime, told the BBC. “They have dedicated recruitment teams, IT departments, money-laundering specialists and infrastructure.”

Forest City Was Touted as a $100 Billion Development

One of China’s largest property developers, Country Garden, unveiled Forest City in 2016, touted to cost $100 billion to build. However, the project failed due to several factors, including a slump in the Chinese housing market and the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, a decade later, with an estimated 5,000 people living there, Forest City has been branded a ghost town.

Forest City Case Echoes Myanmar Scam Hub Laukkaing

This story echoes that of the Chinese mafia-run casino town of Laukkaing on the Myanmar-China border. In this town, four families built a gambling hub that evolved into a front for money laundering and several scam centers. Laukkaing was a small, remote, and very poor town before the scam boom happened, which saw more than 100,000 foreign workers trafficked into the town.

When China cracked down on the border town in 2023, according to the BBC, thousands of scam center workers were handed over to police, and two major figures behind the operation were arrested.

Authorities Still Searching for Forest City Scam Mastermind

Unlike Laukkaing, however, the alleged operation in Forest City remains under investigation. In Malaysia, authorities are still attempting to track down the mastermind behind the scam call centers.