Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times(emphasis ours),
The United States on April 23 imposed sanctions on a wealthy Cambodian senator, Kok An, who allegedly ran crypto-romance scam centers that stole millions of dollars from U.S. citizens.
Kok, 71, is a political ally of Hun Sen, who served as Cambodian prime minister for 25 years before stepping down in 2023 and handing power to his son, Hun Manet. The 73-year-old is now president of the Cambodian Senate.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also sanctioned 28 individuals and entities linked to the suspected scam centers.
“Eliminating fraud is a top priority for the Trump administration,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. “Treasury will continue to target fraudsters and scam centers that steal billions of dollars from hardworking Americans, no matter where they operate or how well-connected they are.”
Industrial-scale cyberscamming, based in scam centers in Burma (also known as Myanmar) and Cambodia, has become a major money-maker for organized crime groups.
The Treasury said in a statement that operators within this network have “stolen millions of dollars from U.S. victims while operating under the protection of Kok An and his political connections.”
The Treasury said fraudsters use “the lure of friendship or romantic relationships” to coax vulnerable Americans into transferring their savings in the form of digital assets by promising investment opportunities and high returns.
Matthew Hogan, a detective with the Connecticut State Police and an officer on the Secret Service’s Financial Crimes Task Forces, told The Epoch Times last year that the biggest growth has been in long-term scams known as “pig butchering,” which involves luring people into fake cryptocurrency investments. The phrase comes from the Chinese term “sha zhu pan.”
The Treasury said Kok owns numerous companies, including Crown Resorts, and has retrofitted casinos and office parks as scam centers where workers—who are often trafficked from China and other countries—target U.S. citizens and trick people out of cryptocurrency, which is then laundered by Kok’s associates.
Source: ZeroHedge News
