Loading story…
The U.S. State Department has imposed visa restrictions on people responsible for or complicit in foreign cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime, including cyber scammers, sextortionists, and in some cases their immediate family members. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the policy is intended to deter overseas criminal enterprises that target Americans through phishing, fraud, impersonation, and related schemes, with particular attention on industrial-scale scam operations in Southeast Asia. U.S. officials said many of these networks are tied to transnational criminal groups, including Chinese-linked organizations, and are often associated with human trafficking and money laundering.
The move advances a broader U.S. campaign launched under a March executive order directing a whole-of-government response to ransomware, phishing, sextortion, and other predatory cyber-enabled crimes. That order called for stronger law enforcement, diplomatic pressure, technical disruption, and possible offensive actions against foreign criminal organizations, alongside a federal operational cell to coordinate activity. The visa restrictions also follow other enforcement steps, including a June Justice Department seizure of infrastructure linked to subsidiaries of Cambodia-based Huione Group, which has been associated with a major marketplace used for cyber scams; U.S. estimates put losses from such scams at $10 billion in 2024.
Mallory correlates global threat intelligence with your attack surface — know if you’re exposed before adversaries strike.
3 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
In June 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice seized infrastructure linked to subsidiaries of Cambodia-based Huione Group, which had been tied to a major criminal marketplace used for cyber scams. The article cites this as related U.S. government action against cyber-enabled criminal enterprises.
The U.S. State Department announced new visa restrictions targeting individuals responsible for or complicit in foreign cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime, including scammers and sextortionists, and in some cases their immediate family members. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the policy is intended to deter foreign-based criminal enterprises, with reporting noting a focus on Southeast Asian scam networks.
On 2026-03-06, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing a whole-of-government response to cybercrime, fraud, ransomware, phishing, sextortion, impersonation, and related predatory schemes targeting Americans. The order called for reviews, an action plan, and coordinated federal efforts against foreign cyber-enabled criminal activity.
Vulnerabilities, threat actors, malware, products, organizations, and breaches Mallory has linked to this story.
4 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.
cyberscoop.com
Open sourcestate.gov
Open sourcetherecord.media
Open sourcewhitehouse.gov
Open sourceMap indicators from this story to your assets and identify affected systems in minutes.
Every observed campaign, victim, and pivot linked to actors named in this story.
Malware, exploits, and IOCs connected to the activity described here.
YARA, Sigma, and Snort rules deployed to your SIEM as soon as they’re published.
Get matching new stories delivered to your team as they break — not the next morning.
Ask questions about this story and take action on the answers.
Other stories Mallory is tracking that overlap on entities, sources, or topic labels.
The United States government has established a dedicated Scam Center Strike Force to target large-scale cyber scam operations based in Southeast Asia, which have defrauded Americans of at least $10 billion in 2024 alone. This multi-agency task force, comprising the Department of Justice, Treasury, FBI, Secret Service, and State Department, will focus on investigating, disrupting, and prosecuting the leaders and infrastructure behind these scam centers, particularly in Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, and Laos. The operations often involve romance scams, fraudulent investment schemes, and cryptocurrency-related fraud, with many scam centers relying on forced labor and human trafficking to sustain their activities. In conjunction with the task force's launch, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), an armed group supporting scam compounds in Myanmar, as well as several companies in Thailand linked to Chinese organized crime. The US has already seized over $410 million in cryptocurrency assets and is pursuing further forfeitures. These actions build on previous sanctions against other transnational criminal organizations, such as the Prince Group, and reflect a broader US strategy to dismantle the infrastructure enabling large-scale cyber fraud and to provide restitution and education to victims.
Jun 29, 2026
U.S. authorities and private-sector partners disrupted transnational scam compounds in Southeast Asia that were tied to **pig-butchering cryptocurrency fraud**, broader confidence scams, and human trafficking networks used to supply forced labor. Reporting says the **Scam Center Strike Force**, led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia with support from the DOJ, FBI, Secret Service, Treasury, and State Department, helped neutralize **1.4 million malicious accounts**, disable supporting infrastructure, and seize more than **500 fake investment domains**. Meta, Microsoft, the U.S. Department of Justice, and other partners were also identified as participants in the disruption effort. The campaign was paired with financial and enforcement actions aimed at the ecosystem enabling the fraud. According to public reporting, U.S. authorities froze more than **$832 million** in cryptocurrency and seized major Telegram recruitment channels allegedly used to traffic workers into scam compounds. Treasury also announced sanctions against a Burma-based armed group and associated companies linked to organized crime targeting Americans, underscoring a broader U.S. effort to pressure entities accused of protecting or facilitating the scam-center industry.
Jul 18, 2026
The U.S. Department of Justice, in collaboration with federal law enforcement and interagency partners, has intensified efforts to combat large-scale cryptocurrency-enabled fraud originating from Southeast Asia. This includes the creation of the Scam Center Strike Force, which targets scam compounds that use forced labor to perpetrate investment fraud, and the designation of groups such as the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) and companies like Trans Asia and Troth Star for their roles in these operations. The U.S. government estimates that Americans lost at least $10 billion to such scams in 2024, a significant increase from previous years, and has already seized over $401 million in cryptocurrency assets, with further forfeiture actions underway. A notable case in this crackdown involves the Prince Group, led by Chen Zhi, which operated forced-labor scam compounds in Cambodia. The U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Chen Zhi for wire fraud and money laundering, and filed a civil forfeiture complaint for approximately 127,271 Bitcoin—proceeds from these illicit activities. The Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) has alleged that the U.S. may have acquired these bitcoins from a 2020 attack on the LuBian bitcoin mining pool, raising geopolitical tensions. The Prince Group action is seen as a landmark in the ongoing U.S. campaign to disrupt the infrastructure behind Southeast Asian pig butchering scams and related cybercrime.
Jul 12, 2026