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The United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced last week that it has sanctioned Cambodian Senator Kok An and 28 others for operating scam centers across the Southeast Asian country.
- Southeast Asian scam network preys on Americans
- Strike Force hits scam rings
- Cambodia at the center of crypto scams
According to the Treasury, the centers employed a variety of techniques to cheat victims out of their savings, with one of the most common and lucrative schemes involving digital asset investment fraud, also known as “pig butchering scams,” which it claimed had swindled billions of dollars from American citizens over the past couple of years alone.
Pig butchering is a long-con scam in which fraudsters build a relationship—often romantic or friendly—with a victim over time, then persuade them to invest increasing amounts of money into fake investment platforms. These schemes frequently involve a fraudulent crypto or trading platform controlled by scammers and often demand that victims pay in digital assets, which can make funds harder to recover and obscure the identities of the perpetrators, who are often part of organized networks rather than individuals.
“Southeast Asian scam operators within this network have stolen millions of dollars from U.S. victims while operating under the protection of Kok An and his political connections,” the Treasury said. “Using the lure of friendship or romantic relationships, these fraudsters coax vulnerable Americans into transferring their savings in the form of digital assets by promising investment opportunities and high returns, only to steal the funds outright.”
Kok An, who the Treasury described as the “Cambodian scam center kingpin,” is a Cambodian senator and businessman who owns numerous companies and properties throughout the country whose occupants target Americans and “commit human rights abuses with impunity.”
According to the Treasury, Kok An’s flagship hospitality company, Crown Resorts, owns casinos, resorts, and other buildings in Poipet, Sihanoukville, Bavet, and other Cambodian cities that have been “retrofitted for fraudulent activity” and converted into compounds from which criminal organizations conduct digital asset investment fraud, launder victims’ funds, and provide a base to target U.S. citizens.
“Eliminating fraud is a top priority for the Trump Administration,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. He added that the Treasury will “continue to target fraudsters and scam centers that steal billions of dollars from hardworking Americans, no matter where they operate or how well-connected they are.”
The action to sanction the 29 individuals, including Kok An, was taken in coordination with the ‘Scam Center Strike Force,” an initiative by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Criminal Division, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the U.S. Secret Service (USSS).
On Thursday, the Scam Center Strike Force announced a series of coordinated actions against Southeast Asian criminal organizations operating scam centers that have “defrauded Americans of billions of dollars.”
This included filing criminal charges against two Chinese nationals who managed a cryptocurrency investment fraud compound in Burma and attempted to open another compound in Cambodia; the seizure of a Telegram messaging app channel used to recruit human trafficking victims to a scam compound in Cambodia, to work a law enforcement impersonation scam; and the seizure of 503 fake investment websites.
“Recognizing the significant harm Southeast Asian scam centers inflict on Americans, the Scam Center Strike Force has directed agents and attorneys from U.S. law enforcement agencies to investigate, disrupt, and prosecute the most egregious scam centers and their leaders, with a focus on Burma, Cambodia, and Laos,” said the Treasury on Thursday.
Southeast Asia is a scam center
Cambodia has been increasingly in the spotlight of global authorities as the epicenter of many crypto scams and fraud networks.
A recent report from blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis showed that pig-butchering networks across Southeast Asia generate billions of dollars annually, often utilizing the digital asset space to transfer and launder the proceeds.
According to the Treasury, U.S. citizens have been particularly targeted, with a government estimate reporting that Americans lost at least $10 billion in 2024 to Southeast Asia-based scam operations, a 66% increase over the prior year.
While these operations employ a variety of techniques to cheat victims out of their savings, pig butchering is perhaps the most common and lucrative.
In January, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chen “Vincent” Zhi, the alleged ringleader of one of the largest scam operations in Southeast Asia and wanted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China.
Chen was born in China but resided in Cambodia, where he founded the Prince Holding Group (also known as the Prince Group), described as “one of Cambodia‘s largest conglomerates.” In a similar M.O. to Kok An’s Crown Resorts, Prince Group has various legitimate interests, including real estate, airlines, and financial services, but is better known for its alleged illicit activity, including running one of the largest “pig butchering” scam compounds in the world.
On October 14, 2025, OFAC, in coordination with the United Kingdom’s (U.K.) Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, designated the Prince Group, as a transnational criminal organization and sanctioned 146 associated persons.
Other similar actions include OFAC’s September 8, 2025, designation of 12 companies and seven individuals based in Cambodia and Burma for their roles in facilitating human trafficking and cyber scams targeting U.S. persons, and OFAC’s September 12, 2024, designation of Cambodian tycoon Ly Yong Phat, his conglomerate L.Y.P. Group, and four of his hotels and resorts.
OFAC’s sanctions designations this Thursday build on these previous efforts to disrupt scam operators based in Cambodia, and the Treasury made clear that it was committed to continuing this campaign.
“Treasury continues to take these actions in close coordination with our international partners to address the shared threat posed by scam centers,” said the Treasury. It added that it would “continue to take aggressive steps to prevent illicit abuse of the digital asset industry, given its crucial role in global innovation and economic development.”
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