The European Union has imposed a fresh round of sanctions on operators of Southeast Asia-based online scam centers, accusing them of serious human rights violations including trafficking and torture. The European Council said it was applying restrictive measures against seven persons and three entities in Cambodia and Myanmar, with asset freezes and travel bans for those designated.
In a statement, the Council accused the targets of “human trafficking, torture, and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments,” as well as involvement in billions of dollars in fraud. The EU said it had “consistently expressed grave concern about the proliferation of scam centers in Southeast Asia” and underlined “the need to dismantle those criminal networks, protect victims and ensure accountability for those responsible.”
Among the targets is Cambodia’s Prince Holding Group and its chairman Chen Zhi. According to the EU, Prince has built scam centers in Cambodia and Myanmar under a number of front companies that perpetrate cryptocurrency investment scams and other fraudulent schemes. Prince Group was previously sanctioned by the United States and the United Kingdom in October 2024, and Chen was later extradited to China, where he faces the death penalty on a range of charges.
Also targeted was the Jin Bei Group, another Cambodia-based entity that has developed casinos and scam centers in the port city of Sihanoukville, along with its chairman, Zhu Zhongbiao. The EU action also hit the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), an armed group that controls territory in Myanmar’s Karen State around the border city of Myawaddy, which has become a hub of scam activity over the past five years.
The sanctions covered four individuals in the DKBA’s ruling hierarchy, including Chief of Staff Saw San Sung, Major General Saw Kyaw Hla, chairman of the DKBA’s Central Economic Committee, and Colonel Saw Eh Le Htoo, described as the operator of the Deeko Park scam center compound. The EU said the DKBA was responsible for facilitating large-scale scam centers by allowing illegal compounds to operate under its protection, and cited reports that its soldiers participated in violence against victims trapped inside compounds.
The scamming industry has entrenched itself across mainland Southeast Asia since the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in loosely regulated parts of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, coordinated predominantly by Chinese organized crime syndicates. These industrial-scale operations run romance-investment and crypto scams against victims around the world while relying on an indentured workforce of people trafficked or lured under false pretenses and held against their will, with victims reporting confinement in cell-like rooms, beatings and torture.
The EU previously sanctioned three individuals and one entity associated with the Karen Border Guard Force, another military-aligned group controlling territory along the Thai border in Karen State. The new measures extend the bloc’s campaign against an industry that security researchers and UN agencies have linked to forced criminality affecting tens of thousands of people.
Sources: The Diplomat, European Council
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