U.S. Department of the Treasury Archives

U.S. sanctions cyber scammers who stole billions from Americans

10Sep

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U.S. sanctions cyber scammers who stole billions from Americans

Several sizable networks of cyber scam operations in Southeast Asia that defrauded Americans of more than $10 billion last year have been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In essence, these operations—which are primarily based in Burma and Cambodia—function as contemporary slavery farms that engage in online fraud and are well-known for their use of physical abuse, forced labor, and human trafficking. The frauds range from phony bitcoin investment possibilities to "romance baiting." According to the revelation, the financial harm that these South Asian scam centers caused to Americans in 2024 increased by 66% over the year before. Ten targets connected to different organized crime networks in Cambodia and nine targets connected read more about U.S. sanctions cybe...

U.S. Sanctions North Korean Andariel Hacker Behind Fraudulent IT Worker Scheme

A member of the North Korean hacker collective Andariel was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Tuesday for their involvement in the notorious remote information technology (IT) worker scheme. By utilizing foreign-hired IT professionals to seek remote jobs with U.S. corporations and intending to divide income with them, Song Kum Hyok, a 38-year-old North Korean national with an address in the Chinese province of Jilin, facilitated the fraudulent operation, according to the Treasury. Song is accused of creating aliases for the recruited workers between 2022 and 2023 using the names, residences, and Social Security numbers of U.S. citizens. The employees then used these personas to pretend to be U.S. citizens seeking remote wo...

U.S. Treasury Targets Russian Money Launderer in Cybercrime Crackdown

A Russian lady who participated in the laundering of virtual currency for the nation's elites and cybercrime groups, such as the Ryuk ransomware organization, has been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. According to the department, Ekaterina Zhdanova is suspected of facilitating significant cross-border transactions to help Russian citizens avoid international sanctions and obtain access to Western financial markets. The treasury department stated last week that Zhdanova uses organizations that are exempt from Anti-Money Laundering/Combatting the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations, such as the Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex Europe OU (Garantex), which has been designated by OFAC. Zhdanova uses a variety of value transfer techniques to transfer ...