U.S. government agencies are cranking up the response to overseas scams that seek to trick people into sending crypto, with the Department of the Treasury announcing a Scam Center Strike Force on Wednesday even as it flagged its latest effort to target a Burmese operation that pursued Americans with fake investment schemes.
U.S. authorities, also including the Department of Justice, are standing up the strike force to go after so-called “pig butchering” often coordinated by massive organized-crime operations in places such as Burma, Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines. The newest case involved Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioning armed groups, companies and individuals in Burma associated with the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army and scam centers said to be backed by Chinese criminal organizations.
The strike force, led by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, aims to take apart the transnational criminal enterprises in Southeast Asia that have stolen tens of billions from Americans — much of it going unreported. The practice sees teams of operatives — often forced into it via human trafficking — working at a factory scale to trick people into fraudulent investing or into sending funds to fake romantic partners.
“The Administration will keep using every tool we have to go after these cybercriminals — wherever they operate — and to protect American families from their exploitation,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John Hurley, in a statement.
The strike force envisions tapping various parts of the federal government with oversight duties related to this area, including DOJ, the Treasury Department, the State Department and domestic law enforcement agencies.
“The scale is staggering,” said Ari Redbord, global head of policy and government affairs for TRM labs, of the global criminal enterprises involved in pig butchering. “The DOJ’s Scam Center Strike Force reflects a hard truth: no single agency can tackle this alone.”
In a similar vein, the DOJ has previously established a health care strike force and a trade-fraud task force.
Last month, U.S. authorities went after Prince Group, which was alleged to have run a Cambodia operation, with the DOJ taking what it said was its largest-ever seizure of 127,271 bitcoin . The action was coordinated between the DOJ and the Treasury.
In Burma, the development of the scam centers was tied by the U.S. authorities to others among the sanctioned entities, including Trans Asia International Holding Group Thailand Company Ltd. (Trans Asia), Troth Star Co. Ltd. (Troth Star) and Thai national Chamu Sawang. The sanctions accused them of being linked to Chinese organized crime, and authorities said the proceeds are going toward funding Burma’s civil war.