Over $700M in crypto, fake investment sites seized in US clampdown on Southeast Asian scam centers

Cybernews reports that the U.S. Scam Center Strike Force has seized more than $700 million worth of cryptocurrency and over 500 fraudulent investment websites as part of a coordinated takedown operation against industrial-scale cyber scam compounds across Southeast Asia that facilitated romance scams and "pig butchering" schemes.

Aside from dismantling 503 phony investment platforms that sought to lure Americans into joining illicit crypto trading schemes in exchange for high returns, officials also restrained a Telegram channel leveraged by threat actors to traffic workers in a forced labor compound in Cambodia. The latest operation has also led to the indictment of Chinese nationals Huang Xingshan, also known as Huang Xing Saan and Ah Zhe, and Jiang Wen Jie, also known as Jiang Nan, who allegedly operated a Myanmar-based scam center, where trafficked workers were physically abused and coerced to defraud Americans.

Such a development comes as the U.S. State Department unveiled a $10 million bounty for any information that would help sequester illicit funds linked to the Myanmar-based Tai Chang scam center complex.