Google.org gives $6 million to The Asia Foundation and Tech for Good Institute to counter scams in Asia

Google.org, Google's philanthropy, has committed $6 million to The Asia Foundation and the Tech for Good Institute to help individuals and small businesses across Asia and the Pacific resist online scams. Google announced the funding in a post published on November 3, 2026, and The Asia Foundation followed with a release dated November 4.

Where the money goes

The Asia Foundation says it will train trusted local intermediaries, incubate AI-powered tools developed locally, and produce evidence that policymakers can use. The work will center on India, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, in partnership with the Tech for Good Institute, a research group focused on Southeast Asia's digital economy, and the United Nations Development Programme.

Neither announcement says how the $6 million is divided between the two recipients or how many years it covers.

The Asia Foundation already runs the APAC Cybersecurity Fund with Google.org support. It says the fund has reached more than 556,000 organizations across 13 countries since October 2023, and that the new program builds on that work.

How it fits with other funders

The grant follows the Anti-Scams Philanthropy Collaborative, which Google.org helped launch in July 2026. Its funders, including JPMorganChase, the Vodafone Foundation, the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, craig newmark philanthropies, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Asian Development Bank, share a commitment of $50 million over three years. The Asia Foundation says the new funding builds on the collaborative, but neither announcement says whether it counts toward the $50 million.

we realized that we needed more resources and collaboration across the sector to make faster progress

Google presented the money alongside its own product and industry work in the region. Its post also describes Android's Fake Call Detection feature, an industry accord on sharing threat intelligence, and the expansion of Be Scam Ready, an educational game, to Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The scale of the losses

Google's post cites a UN report that puts scam losses at up to $114.1 billion in 2025. That is the top of a range: the UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates combined losses across East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand at between $88.3 billion and $114.1 billion for that year. By our arithmetic, the collaborative's $50 million over three years equals less than 0.06% of the low estimate for 2025 alone.

UNODC also says the region's scam compounds have been found to hold people from at least 80 countries and territories.

The U.S. government is also acting against scam networks tied to the region. On November 5, the Treasury sanctioned four individuals and 41 entities it says support the Prince Group, which it calls a transnational criminal organization, and said many of the group's operations have ties to Southeast Asian scam compounds that use trafficked and coerced workers.