Myanmar-based warlord overseeing scam hub faces US sanctions

The US Treasury Department says the Karen National Army, run by Saw Chit Thu, is a ‘transnational criminal organisation’

The United States has sanctioned a Myanmar-based warlord in command of a border zone riddled with scam centres and where tens of thousands of people, including Chinese citizens, have targeted the world with sophisticated online fraud.

The US Treasury Department on Monday branded the Karen National Army (KNA), which controls the Myawaddy region across from Thailand, a “transnational criminal organisation” and slapped sanctions on the KNA “for facilitating cyber scams that harm US citizens, human trafficking, and cross-border smuggling”.

The group’s leader Saw Chit Thu – and his two sons, Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit – were also sanctioned.

Many of the people working in the infamous scam hub in Myawaddy have been tricked and trafficked into entering the lawless area, although others have knowingly chosen to try to make their fortune through scamming, crossing the Moei River from Thailand into the scam area.

“Cyber scam operations, such as those run by the KNA, generate billions in revenue for criminal kingpins and their associates, while depriving victims of their hard-earned savings and sense of security,” said the US Treasury’s Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender.

“[The] Treasury is committed to using all available tools to disrupt these networks and hold accountable those who seek to profit from these criminal schemes.”

The sanctions mean property and assets linked to the KNA and its core leaders in the US or controlled by Americans are “blocked” and must be reported to authorities, while their direct or indirect holdings are also frozen.

Additionally, people who “engage in certain transactions with the individuals and entities designated today” risk falling afoul of the law, the Treasury added in its statement, without explaining the scope of those transactions or potential punishments.

Criminal syndicates mainly based in Myanmar have made billions of dollars in stolen cash from unsuspecting victims across the world, many of whom were reeled in by elaborate romance scams or fraudulent cryptocurrency investments.

The illicit money made has been laundered through cryptocurrency exchanges and casinos and ultimately entered the real economy via property purchases from Bangkok and Singapore to Dubai and London, according to security experts.

Over 3,000 Chinese citizens have been detained and taken back to China from Myawaddy scam centres in a rolling crackdown, which began this year after 22-year-old Chinese actor – Wang Xing – said he was lured into the area on the promises of a fake shoot.

As the spotlight turned on Thailand as a transit route to the Myawaddy – as well as the logistics route for everything from food to Starlink satellite dishes – Thai authorities began a belated crackdown, following pressure from Beijing.

The KNA is a border force given control of the key frontier with Thailand in exchange for its loyalty and alliance with Myanmar’s junta.

Drugs, exotic animal parts, smuggled goods, and other contraband have long run through the Myawaddy, where casinos have provided money laundering opportunities and entertainment for Asia’s shadowy crime bosses.

Saw Chit Thu is wanted by Thailand, following the China-led crackdown against scam operators.

Thousands of scam centre victims from Kenya to Ethiopia, the Philippines and Bangladesh have been freed in recent months as the headlines generated by Wang Xing’s ordeal prodded the KNA into closing down scam centres on its patch.

Yet many more remain in KNA camps awaiting deportation or transit to Thailand, while multiple reports say new scam factories have metastasised further south, as crime gangs wait for the spotlight to pass.

Saw Chit Thu has denied any knowledge of the scam centres, human trafficking or allowing Chinese criminals to establish the fraud outposts on territory controlled by his forces.