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11-09-2025
WASHINGTON: The United States has sanctioned nearly 20 companies and individuals in Myanmar and Cambodia for their involvement in part of a multibillion-dollar global scam industry built on the back of enslaved human trafficking victims.
The Treasury Department on Monday announced it had issued financial and diplomatic sanctions on nine targets operating in Myanmar’s notorious Shwe Kokko city, and 10 in Cambodia.
“Southeast Asia’s cyber scam industry not only threatens the well-being and financial security of Americans, but also subjects thousands of people to modern slavery,” undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K Hurley said in a statement, adding that Americans last year lost more than $10bn from scam operations originating in the region.
The department said it had issued sanctions against Tin Win, Saw Min Min Oo and Chit Linn Myaing Co for acting on behalf of the Karen National Army which protects the massive scam operation as well as She Zhijiang, the creator of the city’s Yatai New City compound. Several companies linked to them were sanctioned as well, which, under the Magnitsky Act, bars them from entry to the US and bank dealings.
In Cambodia, the department sanctioned Dong Lecheng, Xu Aimin, Chen Al Len and Su Liangsheng, along with six companies they are tied to, for their role in turning a number of hotels, office blocks and casinos into scam compounds.
Myanmar and Cambodia have become a cyber-scam epicentre in recent years. Run by criminal networks that often have links to Chinese organized crime, the scam operations bilk victims across the globe out of billions of dollars annually.
The schemes, known as “pig-butchering”, involve scammers developing virtual relationships with victims before convincing them to sink money in nonexistent investments.
Many of those operating the scams are victims themselves, lured from abroad with the promise of fake jobs, and held against their will, often through extreme violence. While exact figures are hard to come by, the now-defunct US aid agency has estimated that approximately 150,000 victims are trapped in scam compounds in Cambodia, while the Thai government has estimated that 100,000 are enslaved in Myanmar.
Located just across the border from Thailand, Shwe Kokko has made headlines in recent months as Thai authorities have facilitated the repatriation of thousands of foreign victims.
Meanwhile, Asian cybercrime syndicates have caused an estimated $37bn in losses in the East and Southeast Asian regions, with the United Nations warning that the reach of the criminal networks is expanding globally.
In a report released on Monday, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) detailed how Chinese and Southeast Asian gangs have been raking in tens of billions of dollars annually targeting victims in an array of cybercrimes, including fake investments, cryptocurrency, romance and other scams.
The criminal organization have largely operated out of squalid compounds in the border areas of Myanmar, as well as in so-called “special economic zones” designed to attract foreign investment in Cambodia and Laos. They have relied on often trafficked workers forced to work in squalid compounds.
While the report said countries in East and Southeast Asia lost an estimated $37bn to cyber-fraud in 2023, there were “much larger estimated losses” worldwide.
The report warned that the networks have been spreading to South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Pacific Islands. “We are seeing a global expansion of East and Southeast Asian organized crime groups,” said Benedikt Hofmann. (Int’l News Desk)
