The United States and the British government recently launched a joint investigation operation that successfully hit a large telecommunications fraud group in Cambodia.According to the U.S. law enforcement agency revealed, the case may become one of the largest "killing pigs" scams in U.S. history.
In a statement issued on the 14th, the U.S. Treasury Department confirmed that it and the British Foreign Office carried out joint operations to crack down on transnational criminal networks in Southeast Asia. Among them, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed large-scale sanctions on 146 targets within the Cambodia-based "Prince Transnational Criminal Organization Group (Prince Group)", including asset freezes and travel bans. According to Taiwan Province's United News Network, this sanctions list includes nine companies registered in Taiwan, China. It is worth noting that these nine companies are all affiliated to the same Singaporean businessman named Lin, and their registered addresses are highly concentrated. They are all located in the well-known luxury house "Heping Garden" on Heping East Road, Da'an District, Taipei City. On the same day, U.S. Attorney General Bundy said that this action was "one of the most important blows" against global human trafficking and online financial fraud.
The British side also took strong steps in the joint operation to impose sanctions on six enterprise entities and six suspects in the Southeast Asia region, and the chairman of the Prince Group, Chinese-born Chen Zheng, who has both British and Cambodian nationalities, is listed.According to BBC reports, British law enforcement has succeeded in freezing 19 criminal gang-named industries in London alone, including an office building in the center of London, with a market value of £100 million.The U.S. Department of Justice has also recorded the largest asset fine in history of the sector, with a total of more than 127,000 Bitcoins confiscated, according to the current market valuation, this asset worth $15 billion.
According to Cable News Network (CNN) reports, the Prince Group has at least 10 scam parks in Cambodia, with the internal staff mostly being seduced by foreigners who are forced to engage in scams under high pressure control. The two major scam centers of the group alone have more than 1,200 mobile phones and more than 70,000 social media accounts. Scammers often use emotions as a breakthrough, inducing victims to “invest” or “provide funding for emergency”. In order to enhance the credibility of the scam, the Prince Group management also specifically demands that the scammers “avoid using too beautiful female images” as a seduction when targeting men.
According to reports, Chen Zhi once publicly boasted that he could make a daily profit of $30 million by manipulating the "pig butchering scampig" scam. The group transferred fraudulent money through other related businesses or shell companies, and used these illegal funds to purchase luxury houses, yachts, private jets, etc. In the electronic fraud park, staff have to bear threats, beatings, solitary confinement and other abuses on a daily basis. It is reported that the management of Prince Group even set the corporal punishment standard of "just don't kill them" for the supervisor. It is also understood that the prosecutor's office in new york, USA, has previously filed a lawsuit against Chen Zhi, accusing him of online fraud, bribery, money laundering and other charges. If all charges are convicted, he can be sentenced to up to 40 years' imprisonment, but up to now, the suspect is still at large.
Sims, a visiting scholar at the Asia Center at Harvard University and an expert on transnational crime, said that organizations such as the Prince Group can be called "an important supporting force for global online fraud activities." He believes that although this joint action between the United States and Britain failed to completely disrupt such transnational criminal networks, the relevant sanctions implemented have fundamentally "changed the risk assessment standards in this field."