FinCEN Warns US Banks of Industrial-Scale Fraud Centers in Southeast Asia Stealing Billions Victims were coerced into ‘investing’ in cryptocurrency and then duped again with fake recovery fees Laundered through digital assets, mixers, front companies and Chinese underground banking networks. American financial institutions need to be more vigilant when it comes to identifying and preventing money fraud, especially those perpetrated by industrial-scale fraud centers in Southeast Asia. This warning was issued by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), along with a long list of red flags that these institutions can watch for to stay safe. Large and dangerous criminal groups The scams are not carried out by small groups of teenagers conning elderly people out of their parents’ basements, but are often large, well-organized crime machines responsible for billions of dollars in damages worldwide every year. Latest videos fromTechRadar In 2025 alone, U.S. fraud victims lost more than $7.2 billion, the warning said, and between September 2023 and December 2025, nearly $13 billion was stolen from Americans. Criminal organizations are mainly located in Cambodia, Burma and Laos. They transported hundreds of thousands of people to various centers across the country, confiscated their passports and forced them to participate in online scams. Those who do not meet certain quotas are often beaten. Some victims were released after their families paid ransom, while others were eventually forced into commercial sex work. To make matters worse, they are resistant to law enforcement, as some are either supported or directly controlled by corrupt local officials. FinCEN says criminals engage in all types of fraudulent activities, but emphasizes that investment fraud is by far the most popular. The scammers approached their victims either under the guise of a romantic interest or under the guise of a financial advisor. Sometimes they even started the conversation by entering a wrong phone number. Sign up for the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, views, features and advice your business needs to succeed! After a lengthy conversation with their victim, they try to convince them to make an “investment,” often using cryptocurrencies and promising unrealistically high returns. This is when FinCEN emphasizes that fraud is easiest to detect: “The majority of payments for digital assets by victims to fraud center operators originate from money services businesses (MSBs) offering digital asset services, including digital asset kiosks, according to FinCEN analysis and law enforcement information. Based on FinCEN’s analysis of BSA reports, scammers often instruct their victims to open accounts with MSBs offering digital asset services to purchase certain types of digital assets. The victim is then asked to send those funds to a digital asset address controlled by the scammers.” But the scam doesn’t end there. Instead, criminals continue, this time abusing emotional stress to cause even more harm. They pose as law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, or even FinCEN itself, claiming that they are investigating (or that they have confiscated stolen funds) and that victims must pay a fee to get their funds back to them. In some cases, scammers pose as investment advisors, asking victims to take their money, buy gold and silver bars, and hand them over to a courier for “safekeeping.” The full list of “red flags” can be found at this link, and FinCEN emphasizes that the circumstances of each individual case must be carefully considered as no red flag “defines illegal or other suspicious activity.” Circumstances include the client’s past financial performance, whether the transactions are consistent with prevailing business practices, and whether the client has multiple related red flags. Money laundering However, stealing money is only half the battle. It still needs to be laundered and reintroduced into the legitimate financial system, and to do this, scam center operators rely on professional money launderers and Chinese money laundering networks. FinCEN describes a three-step process in which criminals first obtain payments in digital assets using bank accounts, money mules, shell companies or fraudulent money services businesses. Then, during online laundering, they hide the origin of the stolen money by quickly moving it to addresses, using mixers, and exchanging tokens between blockchains. The final step is the integration of funds into the traditional financial system through “money mules”, transfers of stablecoins to offshore exchanges and Chinese underground banking networks. The best antivirus for any budget Follow TechRadar on Google News. And add us as your preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds. Post navigation Wayne Bennett never liked the bunker. He wants it to go away after Friday night. I created a single control panel for all services in my home, and now no one needs to know what an IP address is.