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The U.S. Treasury Department says the online scam industry costs ordinary Americans billions of dollars a year through bogus investment opportunities, romance scams or other cons. And Southeast Asia has emerged as an active area for this industry. Michael Sullivan reports on efforts to fight scamming operations that emanate from the region.
MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: In October, the Cambodia-based, Chinese-born Chen Zhi was indicted by the U.S. government for wire fraud and money laundering - the U.S. also sanctioning more than 100 others in what it and the U.K. called the, quote, "largest action ever targeting cybercriminal and fraud networks in Southeast Asia." The U.S. also seized roughly 15 billion in Bitcoin from Chen's Prince holding group.
JASON TOWER: Given that he had consolidated such deep ties with top Cambodian elites, Chen Zhi's arrest is significant.
SULLIVAN: That's Jason Tower at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Along with the Bitcoin, the U.K. also seized several swanky properties in London. The U.S. sought Chen's extradition, but Cambodia balked, Chen Zhi simply too well connected to and his businesses entwined with many in the Cambodian elite, including Prime Minister Hun Manet. But in January, Cambodia abruptly gave him up, just not to the U.S.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: (Non-English language spoken).
SULLIVAN: Chinese state television showed a hooded and handcuffed Chen on a flight from Cambodia to Beijing. China is Cambodia's main political patron, but its citizens, too, have been big-time victims of the scamming operations, and it's put its foot down.
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PRIME MINISTER HUN MANET: (Non-English language spoken).
SULLIVAN: Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Manet, recently said that online scams damage Cambodia's image and threaten national security. And the interior minister announced an April deadline for the scammers to be gone, prompting a government offensive.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: (Non-English language spoken).
SULLIVAN: Cambodian TV recently showcased tape of a raid on a scam center in Kampot Province, one of hundreds they say they've shut down in the past few weeks, with pictures showing workers fleeing as police arrive.
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SULLIVAN: Some of those fleeing were duped into working in the centers, their passports seized, with some workers abused or even tortured. Now, many line up in front of embassies, like Indonesia's, in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, trying to get home. Amnesty International calls the situation a humanitarian crisis.
JACOB SIMS: What we're seeing in Cambodia right now is real disruption. You have compounds that are emptying. There are thousands of people leaving. You're even seeing some arrests.
SULLIVAN: Jacob Sims is a visiting fellow at Harvard's Asia Center, focusing on transnational crime in Southeast Asia.
SIMS: But what this is not is reform. What's happening in Cambodia right now looks far, far less like the dismantling of a criminal economy and far more like elite risk management under serious international pressure.
SULLIVAN: Pressure from the U.S., U.K., China and South Korea that includes sanctions, pressure from international businesses reluctant to invest given Cambodia's increasingly common nickname, Scambodia (ph), forcing scam operators to adapt to keep the money flowing.
JEREMY DOUGLAS: So you can shed some workforce, give some people up for arrest and move. You just have to be ready to do it. And a lot of them, I think, with sanctions and the pressure that's been building, have been doing that. They've been preparing for this day.
SULLIVAN: That's Jeremy Douglas at the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (ph). Downsizing, he says, is one example - discreetly operating out of houses instead of compounds to avoid suspicion. Jason Tower agrees, and he says...
TOWER: We're seeing, increasingly, a global spread of this activity with some of the China-link scam syndicates that have been operating in Southeast Asia moving increasingly to places like Dubai, moving into Sri Lanka, Bangladesh. So you're seeing where they're continuing to try to exploit new geographies and become embedded in a wider and wider range of states around the world.
SULLIVAN: It's like a global game of Whac-A-Mole, and the mole is fast. For NPR News, I'm Michael Sullivan in Chiang Rai, Thailand.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE ROOTS SONG, "WHAT THEY DO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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