Federal authorities said they’ve disrupted a vicious “scam factory” network in Asia that recruited local workers, enslaved them in fraud centers as large as cities, then turned them loose to steal from Americans through phone scams.
Workers thought they were responding to ads for real jobs, but when they showed up, they were shanghaied into working for the scam centers. They were ordered to impersonate U.S. banks and even the New York Police Department as they defrauded targets, particularly older Americans, out of their life savings.
“Thousands were trafficked, enslaved, beaten and then forced to steal from Americans for years,” Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, said at a press conference announcing the takedown. “It’s the economic homicide to us, but it’s also the enslavement.”
She said operations are controlled by “Chinese bosses” and have stolen billions of dollars.
The feds have identified one pot of $700 million in cryptocurrency that they have managed to freeze.
They announced a bounty of up to $10 million for information helping to recover other funds tied to what they called a “slave labor scam factory.”
They identified three compounds that were part of the operation in Burma, all under the name Tai Chang.
And the Justice Department announced charges against two leaders who ran the Shunda scam compound in Burma and who had been working to shift their operations to Cambodia.
Huang Xingshan and Jiang Wen Jie are in Thailand, where they are being held on immigration charges. Ms. Pirro said the U.S. is working to get them sent here.
That compound operated from January to November of last year, when it was stormed by Burma’s army.
U.S. investigators said more than 8,000 phones and 1,500 computers were seized.
More broadly, Ms. Pirro said the U.S. has taken down more than 500 websites associated with the scams.
The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against Kok An, a Cambodian senator whom the government said facilitated scam compounds in his country.
Investigators also identified a Telegram channel they said was used to recruit the workers. Their documents are seized, and they are forced, through threats and sometimes beatings, to work in the compounds either in Burma or Cambodia.
The scammers made a point to recruit workers who spoke with an American accent. They were told they were working in a call center and could earn up to $1,100 a month plus a commission.
Authorities identified romance scams as the core of the fraud.
Americans, particularly older ones, are enticed into online relationships and end up turning over their money to the scammers, usually on promises that it will be invested.
Another scam involved impersonating a U.S. bank and warning of questionable activity in accounts. They would then transfer the call to someone posing as a New York police detective or even the “New York Supreme Court,” who would then demand bank information.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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