PeterRS Posted 4 hours ago Posted 4 hours ago There was a thread quite recently about scam centres largely in Myanmar. According to AFP and other media outlets, Thailand, China and Myanmar had promised to crackdown on these earlier in the year after it came to light that a popular Chinese TV star had been trafficked to work in one. That crackdown quickly fizzled out and the number of scam centres is rapidly increasing. Most tend to use Elon Musk's Starlink satellite service. Although warned by California prosecutors last year, the company's parent SpaceX did not even reply. Now a joint Committee of the US Congress has finally got its act together and is calling Musk to give testimony with a view to taking action. This should have been done well over a year ago since the majority of those scammed are elderly Americans. Now the US government has seized more than US$14 billion in bitcoin and charged the founder of its Cambodian Prince Group empire, UK and Cambodian national Chen Zhi, with allegedly masterminding a "massive crytocurrency scam." The UK government has also seized 19 properties it owns in London, one allegedly worth $133 million. US prosecutors say it is one the biggest financial takedowns in history and the largest ever seizure of bitcoin, with approximately 127,271 bitcoin being held by US government . . . the DOJ alleges that it runs one of Asia's largest transnational criminal organisations . . . Prosecutors alleged that the company built and operated at least ten scam compounds throughout Cambodia, according to court documents seen by the BBC . . . Accomplices allegedly procured millions of mobile phone numbers and set up "phone farms" to conduct call centre scams, according to the court documents, dated 8 October. Two of these facilities had 1,250 mobile phones that controlled around 76,000 social media accounts for scams, the documents said. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70jw436n0yo Quote
