A warlord in control of a remote region of Myanmar was identified as the unexpected source of a worldwide cybercrime operation.
According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, Saw Chit Thu and his sons Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chi were allegedly operating a fraud and cybercrime nexus in the Karen area of Myanmar, which borders Thailand.
The U.S. government has now imposed sanctions on all three to restrict their access to accounts and financial activities.
From “pig butchering” romance scams against individuals to business-focused schemes like cryptocurrency investment scams and money laundering fronts for sanctioned groups, the group is accused of conducting a variety of scam operations through a number of unofficial call center facilities.
Together with Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit, the patriarch of the Saw family, Saw Chit Thu leads a militia known as the Karen National Army. According to reports, the group’s area of influence stretches along a crucial border between Thailand and Myanmar, giving them authority over travel between the two nations.
As their name suggests, the Karen National Army is a rather disagreeable bunch. The militia is thought to be involved in smuggling, human trafficking, and other nefarious activities carried out under the direction of Myanmar’s military regime, in addition to operating a cyberfraud hub.
Although it may seem improbable that a cybercrime empire could be found in Myanmar’s forests, the region’s geography and political atmosphere provide ideal conditions for the operation of illegal organizations. It is estimated that within the past three years, cybercrime activities with Myanmar origins have cost the United States alone between $2 billion and $3.5 billion.
Officials claim that the KNA became involved in human trafficking and cybercrime because of its regional dominance and strong connections to the military government. These two fields frequently overlap, with foreigners being enticed with offers of call center work only to end up as unwilling workers in a fraud factory.
As they assist in carrying out different fraud activities at the militia’s request, which often target people and organizations in the West, the U.S. authorities claimed that the captive laborers are vulnerable to further torture and brutality.
The schemes can range from investment fraud schemes that target businesses and investors with the promise of a lucrative payback in the form of cryptocurrency profits, which are obviously never realized, to romance scams that use fictitious profiles to trick potential daters into giving up their money and personally identifiable information.
In several instances, the scams are so complex that they include several investment rounds and the use of fictitious transactions to deceive the victims into thinking that their money is actually yielding profits over several months before the hoax is ultimately exposed.
Additionally, the firm is accused of providing the North Korean government with its money laundering services, enabling the regime to transform stolen cryptocurrencies into what appear to be legitimate assets and transactions.
For a group that primarily engages in underground cryptocurrency transactions and benefits from the protection of a military dictatorship, the sanctions are unlikely to have much immediate effect, even though they will freeze all U.S.-based assets held by the KNA and forbid transactions as a criminal enterprise.
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