Scams, Smuggling & Sanctions: A Militia’s Crypto Nightmare

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It is with no small degree of astonishment that one must announce, dear reader, that the Karen National Army (KNA), a militia of no great repute, stationed in the wilds of Myanmar’s eastern territories near the Thai border, has been officially designated by none other than the esteemed U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as a transnational criminal organization. Their leader, the ever-ambitious Saw Chit Thu, and his two sons, seemingly of the same unscrupulous ilk, have been named in this most dubious distinction. Truly, what an honor! 🍿

But let us not be too hasty in our admiration for such a title. It appears, rather unfortunately, that the KNA’s less-than-gentlemanly pursuits involve an array of devious cryptocurrency scams. Amongst these, the infamous “pig butchering” scheme stands proudly as the crown jewel of their criminal enterprise. These schemes, if one can call them such, involve a slow and deliberate romance of deceit, where vulnerable victims, often elderly and unsuspecting, are wooed through social media or messaging apps, before being coaxed into repeated investments into non-existent crypto ventures. The results, one might imagine, are catastrophic, particularly for the unsuspecting elderly of our fair land. 🤦‍♂️

Although no precise sums were disclosed in the official Treasury announcement on May 5, the figures, one presumes, must be staggering. The KNA’s exploits are believed to have drained billions from the coffers of American citizens, a loss felt particularly by those over the age of 60, who, in their innocence, were perhaps too trusting of a world that has grown far too complex for their liking. How utterly tragic. 😢

Moreover, the KNA is not merely concerned with such sordid financial schemes. No, their operations appear to be linked to the far darker trade of human trafficking and cross-border smuggling. The trafficked individuals, one suspects, are sadly enlisted in the execution of this grand digital fraud, adding an extra layer of misery to an already bleak tale. Truly, one can hardly imagine a more wretched state of affairs. 🏚️

And yet, despite all the scandal, the United States persists in referring to Myanmar as “Burma” in diplomatic circles, a subtle snub to the military regime in power. The KNA, ever the troublemakers, now joins the growing list of crypto-related actors who have found themselves under OFAC’s ever-watchful eye. It seems no one, not even the most resourceful of Middle Eastern terror groups or the enigmatic privacy tools like Tornado Cash, can escape the long arm of U.S. sanctions.

Let us now turn our gaze to the latest figures on this growing menace. In the year 2024 alone, Americans suffered a staggering loss of $9.3 billion due to cryptocurrency fraud—an increase of 66% from the year prior. And who, you may ask, was most severely affected? Why, none other than the seniors over 60, who reported losses approaching $3 billion. It seems that no one is safe from the lures of this nefarious world. Blockchain analytics firms, such as TRM Labs, estimate that the “pig butchering” scams alone accounted for over $4.4 billion in losses in 2023. A most regrettable state of affairs, indeed. 😩

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2025-05-06 11:38