ASEAN Beat | Security | Southeast Asia

EU Announces New Sanctions Targeting Southeast Asia-Based Online Scam Networks

Cambodia’s Prince Holding Group and the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, a Myanmar-based rebel group, were among the targeted groups.

The European Council chamber inside the Europa building in Brussels, Belgium.

The European Union yesterday announced a fresh tranche of sanctions aimed at the operators of Southeast Asia-based online scamming operations, who they said are responsible for “serious human rights violations.”

In a statement, the European Council stated that it was imposing “restrictive measures” against seven persons and three entities in Cambodia and Myanmar, accusing them of “human trafficking, torture, and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments,” as well as billions of dollars in fraud.

The sanctions, which involve asset freezes and travel bans for the designated individuals and entities, are the latest response to the scamming industry that has entrenched itself across mainland Southeast Asia since the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in loosely regulated parts of Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. Coordinated predominantly by Chinese organized crime syndicates, these industrial-scale scam operations run romance-investment and crypto scams on victims who target victims across the globe.

In addition to victimizing those on the receiving end of the scams, these rely on a large indentured workforce – mostly ordinary people who have been “trafficked or lured under false pretenses [and] held against their will,” the European Council said. Inside scam centers, victims have reported being confined in cell-like rooms, as well as subjected to beatings, mistreatment, and torture.

The new sanctions (the full Council decision is here) target the Cambodia-based Prince Holding Group and its chairman Chen Zhi. According to the EU, Prince has built scam centers in Cambodia and Myanmar under a number of front companies that “perpetrate cryptocurrency investment scams and other fraudulent schemes.” Prince Group was previously the subject of........

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