Scam Lords, Sanctions & Crypto: How a Myanmar Warlord Fooled the World (and the U.S. Treasury)

In the vast and troubled land of Myanmar, where time is but a slow-moving wagon and fate jests with the earnest, the United States, obliged to play the stern uncle at the family dinner of nations, has chosen to reprimand a local sovereign—a certain Saw Chit Thu. Not with a rap on the knuckles or a gentle rebuke, but with the full force of modern economic vengeance: sanctions. It must be said, when America sanctions, wallets shiver from Mandalay to Manhattan 🌎💸.

Saw Chit Thu—his name as sharp as the edge of a cleaver—presides not over church or schoolhouse, but the Karen National Army, itself a force keener on mischief than prayer meetings. It isn’t merely war he’s fond of; no, he’s entered the electronic age, presiding over a new kind of battlefield—the cyber scam.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control, which sounds rather grand until you realize its daily work is less Dostoevskian intrigue and more paperwork, has extended its censure not only to Saw himself but also his two sons—Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit. Family values, in this case, seem best served with a side of human trafficking, cross-border smuggling, and the occasional cryptocurrency scam.

Ah, cryptocurrency fraud! That fiendish modern invention, promising every peasant the chance for riches without sowing a single seed. The Americans, who adore figures as much as they abhor losing them, mourn the loss of over $2 billion in 2022, and $3.5 billion in 2023, spirited away from innocent purses into the murky depths of digital wallets. Imagine, if you will, the sound of a collective American sigh. 💱🦹‍♂️

Into this tragicomedy steps the Huione Group—an institution not content with simple accounting but instead specializing in the laundering of both money and morality. The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network unearthed this particular viper from its Cambodian nest on May 1, 2025. It turns out, the region is less a home for postcards and more a breeding ground for scams befitting Gogol.

Tactics are as old as the hills—romance schemes, currency investment scams, and the rather grotesquely named “pig butchering.” A process not involving actual pork, but the even more tender commodity: hope.

“Scammers present their victims with hints of a wealthy, glamorous lifestyle”—oh, the promise of leisure!—only to shepherd them into investing in swindles more hollow than a czar’s promise. The victims, starry-eyed, believe in the “returns” shown to them. They invest more, lose more, and soon find themselves not just penniless, but with the added embarrassment of being outfoxed by men who probably still play with dial-up internet.

Such “pig butchering” has yielded billions for these entrepreneurs in vice, just as surely as wheat once filled the granaries of old Russia. OFAC names Saw Chit Thu as a chief conspirator in this theater, with assistance from a military junta as sympathetic to decency as a winter in Siberia is warm.

For Saw Chit Thu, notoriety is so grand that the British and European powers too have waved their frowns in his direction in 2023 and 2024. He must feel quite the international celebrity—for nothing brings a family together like joint censure from three continents. 🤷‍♂️🌍

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2025-05-05 21:41