An international cybercrime operation was traced back to an unlikely source: a warlord controlling a remote part of Myanmar.The U.S. Department of Treasury said it believed Saw Chit Thu and his sons Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chi were using their control over the Karen region of Myanmar bordering Thailand to operate a hub for fraud and cybercrime activities.All three are now subject to U.S. government sanctions aimed at limiting their ability to access accounts and perform financial transactions.Running a series of unofficial call center facilities, it is alleged that the group has been carrying out a number of scam operations, ranging from “pig butchering” romance scams against individuals to business-focused schemes such as cryptocurrency investment scams and money laundering fronts for sanctioned groups.The patriarch of the Saw family, Saw Chit Thu commands a militia known as the Karen National Army along with Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit. The group’s region of control is said to run along a key border region between Myanmar and Thailand, allowing the group to control access between the two countries.True to their namesake, the Karen National Army are a decidedly unpleasant group. In addition to running a cyberfraud hub, it is believed that the militia is engaging in human trafficking, smuggling, and various other dirty deeds performed at the behest of Myanmar’s military junta.While the jungles of Myanmar may seem like an unlikely place to find a crybercrime empire, the location and political climate of the area makes for fertile ground in terms of operating criminal enterprises. It is believed that in the U.S. alone between $2 billion and $3.5 billion was lost to cybercrime operations originating in Myanmar over the last three years.Because of its regional control and close ties to the military government, officials say that the KNA established itself in the human trafficking and cybercrime landscape, with the two areas often overlapping as foreign nationals are lured in with offers of call center work only to find themselves unwilling employees in a fraud factory.The U.S. government said the captive workers are subject to additional abuse and mistreatment as they help carry out various fraud operations at the militia’s behest, usually targeting individuals and organizations in the West.The schemes can range from romance scams in which fake profiles are used to trick would-be daters into handing over their money and personally identifiable information, to investment fraud schemes that target businesses and investors with the promise of a lucrative payback in the form of cryptocurrency profits which are, of course, never realized.In some cases, the scams are so elaborate as to include multiple rounds of investments and the use of fake transactions to trick the targets into believing that their investments are already seeing returns over a series of months before the rug is finally pulled.It is also alleged that the group has been offering its money laundering services to the North Korean government, allowing the dictatorship to convert stolen cryptocurrency into seemingly legit assets and transactions.While the sanctions will freeze any and all U.S.-based assets held by the KNA and prohibit transactions as a criminal enterprise, it will likely have little short-term impact for a group that operates largely in underground cryptocurrency transactions and enjoys the protection of a military dictatorship.
