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The United States and the United Kingdom have declared extensive sanctions on multinational criminal network based in Southeast Asia, to manage a chain of “fraud centers” in Cambodia, Myanmar and throughout the region, using workers' trafficking to deceive people around the world in counterfeit cryptocurrencies.
The US Department of Finance on Tuesday said it had taken what it described as the largest action in Southeast Asia, directed to 146 people in Cambodia-based Prince Group Network, which declared a transnational organization.
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The United Kingdom also struck sanctions for six organizations and Prince Group -related persons, freezing 19 London properties worth over £ 100 million (134 million dollars).
“Today's action is one of the most significant strikes so far against the global scourge of human trafficking and financial fraud with activated cyber,” said US Prosecutor Pam Bondi.
Federal prosecutors in the United States also gave an indictment accusing Chinese Cambodic tycoon Chen G, the 37-year-old president of the Princess Group, on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy for money laundering. Chen, who is known as Vincent and remains at large, is confronted with up to 40 years in prison if he is sentenced to the charges.
The US Department of Justice also submitted the largest actions to take away in its history against the group by taking over at Bitcoin worth over $ 14 billion at current prices.
Signs of 'pigs'
Chen was “the leader behind the spreading Cyberfavian Empire,” said Assistant Prosecutor John Eisenberg, with US lawyer Joseph Noto describing network operations as “one of the largest investment fraud operations in history.”
The group is accused of managing a network of intended for purposeful Fraud Centers This operated as forced labor camps in Cambodia, Myanmar and other countries in the region where workers – many Chinese – were lured by false job ads.
Traffic workers were then detained against their will in the compounds and forced, under the threat of torture, to commit online fraud against victims around the world.
So -called Frauds for “pigs” They often participated in trafficking workers, luring their goals into fake romantic relationships online before convincing them to invest large sums on fraudulent cryptocurrency platforms.
Private planes and Picasso
The cheated funds were partly washed through the Prince Group's own gambling and cryptocurrency operations.
The stolen money funded luxury purchases, including yachts, private planes, holiday homes and a Picasso painting purchased at a New York auction house, authorities said.
At one point, prosecutors said, Cheng boasted that the fraud was pulling on $ 30mA day.
Since about 2015, the Prince Group has been operating in more than 30 countries under the guise of legal real estate, financial services and consumer enterprises, prosecutors said, as Chen and colleagues, they say they use political influence and bribe in many countries to protect the operation.
Jacob Daniel Sims, an expert in transnational crimes and a visiting associate at the Asian Center of Harvard University, told the Associated Press that Prince Group is “an essential part of the scaffolding that makes global cyber-skimming.”
Chen, he said, was the “central pillar” of the criminal economy, intertwined with the management regime of Cambodia, being advisor to Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father, former Prime Minister Hong Saint.
“Until the prosecution and sanctions immediately disassemble these networks, they essentially change the risk calculation,” Sims said.
They make “every global bank, a real estate company and an investor think twice before touching the Cambodic elite money.”
By announcing the sanctions, British Foreign Minister Yvet Cooper said the fraud network was enriched while destroying life around the world.
“The main means behind these horrific fraud centers ruin the lives of vulnerable people and buy London homes to store their money,” she said.
In 2023, the United Nations organization estimated that about 100,000 were forced to carry out Online fraud in Cambodiaas well as at least 120,000 in Myanmar and tens of thousands in Thailand, Laos And the Philippines. In September, the UN warned that Eastern Timor It was a new hot spot for fraud.
