Blockchain Security Must Localize To Stop Asia’s Crypto Crime Wave

Opinion by: Slava Demchuk, co-founder and CEO of AMLBot

Asia’s cryptoverse has lost more than 1.5 billion in the first half of 2025 — more than during 2024, including Bybit and pig butchering scams in Southeast Asia. Most engines are built around typologies of Western money laundering. They miss custom laundering channels tailored to each region, which are popping up across Asia.

Blockchain analytics firms must build customized regional risk libraries and collaborate with local law enforcement to combat the level and caliber of cryptocurrency-enabled crime in Asia. Failure to address this means criminal funds will still be able to lurk in plain sight and subvert the very integrity of global compliance systems.

Western tools, Eastern loopholes

The global risk engine most commonly targets mixers, tumblers and centralized on-ramps in North America and Europe. But the Asian financial underground uses different weapons: unlicensed OTC desks in Thailand, mobile-money corridors in the Philippines, and informal peer-to-peer parking methods that don’t trigger red flags as seen through today’s general compliance lens.

With the corresponding flows, these wallets build the wallet clusters and flow patterns that circumvent legacy detection rules. Proceeds are often left idle or are discreetly layered, before ending up at decentralized exchanges, letting the laundering cycle slip by general compliance triggers.

Local problems need local maps

The ability to effectively monitor crime in APAC is based on jurisdiction-level expertise. That includes mapping typical tactics, such as circular trading via Singaporean shell companies, or layering transactions with Indonesian e-wallets. Analytics providers must ingest locally published onchain data and hold living typologies to mimic real-time laundering innovations rather than wait to reverse engineer them when it’s too late.

Building regional risk libraries — flagging wallet clusters, known bad actors and unique entry/exit ramps — is fundamental. These tools must be built into enforcement engines, not tacked on after a scam becomes newsworthy.

Building bridges with law enforcement

Data alone doesn’t stop crime. Local regulators are typically not well-versed in blockchain, and private analytics companies require legal authority to act. This is where public-private partnerships (PPPs) are crucial. PPPs may formally permit secure data-sharing, joint training and real-time alerts.

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