Americans lost $10 billion to Southeast Asia scam operations in 2024
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Americans lost more than $10 billion to fraudulent online activities perpetuated in Southeast Asia in 2024, the State Department revealed on Monday.
Citing a government estimate in a statement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio decried how criminal actors across Southeast Asia have increasingly exploited internet users.
Consequently, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on nine targets involved in operations in Shwe Kokko.
A scam center hub based in Burma is accused of operating under the funding and protection of the sanctioned criminal organization Karen National Army (KNA).
The State Department labels the KNA a transnational cartel, which facilitates schemes targeting Americans and manipulates people in forced labor.
The OFAC has also sanctioned four individuals and six entities running locations in Cambodia, where workers carry out virtual scams against victims in the U.S., Europe, China, and elsewhere.
Rubio said that the penalty protects Americans from the pervasive threat of criminal networks that coordinate theft, fraud, forced labor, and physical and sexual abuse.
On its website on Monday, the Office of Foreign Assets Control published the identities of Southeast Asians and entities newly added to the list of specially designated nationals.
Americans lost $10 billion to Southeast Asia scam operations in 2024
