WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States imposed sanctions on Monday on a Myanmar warlord, his two sons and the militia he leads for facilitating cyber scams, human trafficking and cross-border smuggling, the Treasury Department said.
The Treasury said the warlord, Saw Chit Thu, is a central figure in a network of illicit and highly lucrative cyberscam operations targeting Americans. Hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked by criminal gangs across Southeast Asia in recent years and forced to work in the scam operations, according to the United Nations.
The move puts financial sanctions on Saw Chit Thu, the Karen National Army that he heads, and his two sons, Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit, the department said in a statement, freezing any U.S. assets they may hold and generally barring Americans from doing business with them.
Britain and the European Union have already imposed sanctions on Saw Chit Thu.
The Karen National Army is headquartered in Shwe Kokko, a so-called “Special Economic Zone” along the Thai-Myanmar border, where the militia leases land and provides security for compounds where trafficked individuals are forced into scamming strangers online, the statement said.
“Cyber scam operations, such as those run by the KNA, generate billions in revenue for criminal kingpins and their associates, while depriving victims of their hard-earned savings and sense of security,” said Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender.
Naing Maung Zaw, a spokesperson for the KNA, said Saw Chit Thu was saddened by news of the U.S. sanctions but that they “will not affect us in any way”.
“I really cannot understand why this happened when we … are working to crack down on scam centers and repatriate victims to their respective countries,” Naing Maung Zaw said. “We will continue the work we have started.”
Saw Chit Thu’s ties to Myanmar’s military rulers, evidenced by an honorary title for “outstanding performance” conferred on him by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing in November 2022, have helped him build his position.
Washington has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Myanmar’s junta and its sources of income since the military toppled the elected government of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, igniting a spiraling civil war.
Monday’s sanctions were the first Myanmar-related sanctions imposed since President Donald Trump took office in January.
The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network last week proposed banning Cambodian financial firm Huione Group from the U.S. financial system over its alleged role in laundering illicit funds from cyber heists and online scams.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Katharine Jackson and Simon Lewis; Additional reporting by Naw Betty Han; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Rosalba O’Brien)
