The US and the UK are taking action against cybercriminals in Southeast Asia involved in online investment scams and the laundering of billions of dollars in stolen funds.
The U.S. Treasury Department says the agency’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) are working with the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) amid rising cases of fraudulent online transactions that have caused over $16.6 billion in losses.
The OFAC has imposed sanctions on individuals and entities with ties to the Cambodia-based Prince Group Transnational Criminal Organization (Prince Group TCO), which authorities say engages in deceptive online investment schemes and pig butchering operations that rely on human trafficking and modern-day slavery.
“Prince Group TCO profits from a litany of transnational crimes including sextortion—a type of fraud involving the solicitation for eventual blackmail of sexually explicit materials, often from minors—money laundering, various frauds and rackets, corruption, illegal online gambling, and the industrial-scale trafficking, torture, and extortion of enslaved workers in furtherance of the operation of at least ten scam compounds in Cambodia.”
The UK’s FCDO concurrently sanctioned the Prince Group-affiliated conglomerate Prince Holding Group along with its chairman and CEO Chen Zhi, who was also indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Meanwhile, the FinCEN initiated to cut off from the US financial system the Huione Group, another Cambodia-based organization accused of laundering the proceeds of virtual currency scams and heists on behalf of malicious actors, which include thieves from the People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and TCOs in Southeast Asia.
Says Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent,
“Treasury is taking action to protect Americans by cracking down on foreign scammers. Working in close coordination with federal law enforcement and international partners like the United Kingdom, Treasury will continue to lead efforts to safeguard Americans from predatory criminals.”
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