Asia In Brief Australia’s Federal Police (AFP) last week announced charges against four suspects for alleged participation in a money-laundering scheme that involved a security company’s armored cash transport unit.
The unnamed security company transferred cash between businesses and banks. A taskforce investigating a series of suspicious transactions alleges the security company mixed cash from its legitimate business arm with illicit funds deposited by suspected criminals.
The AFP alleges the security company “channeled the money through a web of transactions including through a sales promotion company, a classic car dealership and cryptocurrency exchange services.” The company then allegedly paid laundered money to its clients as cryptocurrency or through the third-party companies.
The Australian feds allege the scheme’s operators washed AU$190 million ($124 million).
Those charged include the director and general manager of the security company, an alleged client of the scheme, and a man who it is alleged funneled money between accounts for the client.
APNIC completes re-org
The Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC), the regional internet registry that serves 56 economies and over four billion people, has completed the “organizational realignment process” flagged to The Register by recently-appointed director general Jia Rong Low.
The process means APNIC has changed the nature of its internal teams, which previously focused on four “pillars” of activity – Registry, Development, Engagement and Capability.
In an announcement about the review, Low wrote “Structuring teams into the four ‘pillars’ created silos across the organization resulting in inefficiencies.”
“While APNIC will continue to report its activities against the four pillars, teams will no longer be structured to fit within those pillars,” he added. In the future, all internal teams will contributed to different goals in APNIC’s strategic plan.
The org will now operate the following teams:
- Engineering – a team that will combine all technical development and engineering resources;
- Member and Registry Services – focusing on timely and accurate processing of resource allocations;
- Development – a team that moves beyond training to improve the deployment and management of Internet number resources in the region;
- Communication and Community Engagement – linking all of APNIC’s outreach programs including its blog and podcast, conferences, training, policy development processes, and community consultations;
- Strategic Relations – a new team responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders, partners, governments and industry leaders;
- Corporate Services – back office ops, including a new procurement;
- People and Productivity, Legal and APNIC Labs team – More back office ops, plus Geoff Huston’s famous labs
The re-org has also seen the registry revisit its budget and now APNIC expects it will “exit its annual deficit position by 2027 with these adjustments.”
The re-org has also seen the registry revisit its budget and now APNIC expects it will “exit its annual deficit position by 2027 with these adjustments.”
India cuts the cost of chipmaking plants
India’s government last week announced it has changed the rules it applies to special economic zones, meaning US chipmaking giant Micron will be able to access concessions for a plant it announced in June 2023 and recently opened.
Micron’s plan called for creation of a facility with 500,000 square feet of cleanroom space used for assembly and test manufacturing of DRAM and NAND products. The company planned to use the facility to serve customers in India, and beyond.
Last week, India’s government announced the project will proceed after it reduced the minimum physical size of special economic zones from 50 hectares to 10 hectares. Micron plans to occupy 37.64 hectares in Sanand, Gujarat.
India’s government has pitched the new minimum size as “pioneering reforms” that acknowledge the huge startup costs incurred by manufacturers of semiconductors and electronics components and will therefore boost investment. Micron budgeted ₹ 13,000 crore ($1.5 billion) for its plant, expects to employ 5,000 people directly and expects its efforts will result in the creation of another 15,000 jobs in the nearby community.
Just why it took two years for India to reach that conclusion was not explained.
Cambodia cuts off Thai internet connections
Cambodia’s government last week ordered all local carriers to stop buying internet connectivity from Thailand, after authorities in the latter nation threatened to do so as part of efforts to combat scam camps that operate near the countries’ shared border.
The order followed a late May incident in which Thai and Cambodian troops exchanged fire across their border, killing one in Cambodia. Thailand later threatened to cut off internet and electricity supply, in part to target the operation of scam camps.
Cambodia’s prime minister Hun Manet welcomed the connectivity ban. According to a report by Japanese outlet Nikkei the decision caused mobile internet outages in Cambodia. Weekend talks between officials from the two nations appear not to have resolved the situation.
Australian PM welcomes AWS expansion
Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese made a stopover in Seattle en route to the G7 meeting in Canada, to meet CEO Matt Garman and participate in an announcement at which the cloud giant pledged to invest in three solar farms to support expanded datacenter ops down under.
AWS had already pledged to invest AU$13 billion ($8.4bn) in Australia, and at the event increased that to AU$20 billion ($13 bn).
A prime ministerial announcement states the extra cash will go towards “development and expansion of data centers in Melbourne and Sydney that include storage, networking, analytics, and other advanced, highly secure services, supporting cloud and AI demand.”
AWS typically positions its spending on infrastructure that will help it to make money and deliver value to shareholders as an investment in the country hosting its bit barns, without offering a detailed breakdown of whether the sums mentioned cover only infrastructure investment or also go towards wages for local employees and other unavoidable expenses. If Albanese asked for a detailed breakdown, he didn’t mention it during the announcement event or in press releases.
Infosys tax probe ends
Indian tax authorities have closed their investigation into whether local tech services giant Infosys owes $4 billion in tax.
Infosys recently posted a filing [PDF] that states it was found not to be liable for the taxes.
Qualcomm opens Vietnam AI R&D center
US chip design firm Qualcomm last week announced a research and development center in Vietnam.
The facility will focus on AI and according to state media will work generative AI and agentic AI solutions Qualcomm hopes to deploy in smartphones, personal computers, extended reality applications, cars, and the Internet of Things.
The center will be Qualcomm’s third largest but Vietnamese authorities are chuffed because it’s just the kind of investment its government covets as it pursues an expanded role in digital technology industries. ®
