The Department of Justice has announced that its Scam Center Strike Force has filed criminal charges and issued arrest warrants against two Chinese nationals for operating a cryptocurrency investment fraud operation in Burma (also known as Myanmar) and trying to start another in Cambodia.
The strike force also seized a Telegram app channel that used the promise of nonexistent jobs to lure unsuspecting job seekers to its compound in Burma, along with 503 fake investment websites.
According to a Department of Justice statement, the strike force unsealed arrest warrants against Huang Xingshan, also known as “Ah Zhe” and “Huang Xing Saan,” and Jiang Wen Jie, also known as “Jiang Nan,” in connection with cryptocurrency investment fraud operations in Min Let Pan, Burma.
They are charged with wire fraud conspiracy, according to the statement.
They are being held in Cambodia on immigration charges, according to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. The United States is working with Cambodian officials, Pirro said during an April 22 press conference.
“We’re hoping to bring these individuals back here,” she said.
The pair allegedly scammed potentially billions of dollars from victims around the world, including from the United States.
Huang and Jiang are accused of managing the Shunda compound in Min Let Pan. Pirro described the compound, from which officials took 8,000 cellphones and 1,500 computers, as a very large, sophisticated operation.
“These places are cities essentially where you have enslaved labor that’s been trafficked, that’s been conned themselves into going into, they think, a legitimate job, and they end up being enslaved,” Pirro said.
In one scheme, scammers posing as bankers called individuals and told them their bank accounts had been used to buy guns from a U.S. gun store website that was real. Victims were then transferred to others posing as “NYPD detectives” or other law enforcement agents. Eventually, victims were connected with fake “court officials” and convinced to disclose bank account information and transfer money to the scammers.
The Shunda compound reportedly operated between January 2025 and November 2025. Compound operators also used sham websites, social media, and mobile applications masquerading as legitimate investments to lure in victims.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reports that investment scams were the most reported crime in 2023. Cryptocurrency investment fraud accounted for 83 percent of reports. Approximately $3.96 billion was stolen in 2023, and $5.8 billion was stolen in 2024. Reported losses rose by 24 percent in 2025 to more than $7.2 billion, according to the center’s 2025 annual report.
According to Pirro, financial scams were only some of the crimes committed by the scam compounds in Southeast Asia.
A Telegram channel with more than 6,000 followers featured phony job opportunities promising high salaries in Cambodia. Some ads sought workers who spoke English with an American accent. Once hired, recruited workers’ passports were taken, and they were forced to defraud victims, including Americans.
Pirro said the compound had a brutal incentive program.
“They trafficked and tortured people if they didn’t deliver on fake cryptocurrency investments to steal Americans’ life savings,” Pirro said during the press conference.
The Scam Center Strike Force was formed in November 2025 to investigate scam compounds in Southeast Asia with an emphasis on identifying and arresting top leaders.
The strike force is made up of elements from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, the FBI, and the Secret Service. It partners with the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and the Department of Commerce, according to its website.
Pirro and the other officials who spoke said the law enforcement operation is in line with President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order calling on federal agencies to protect Americans from transnational criminal operations and cyberscams.
Jonathan Burke, assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department, said the strike force is trying to get ahead of a major problem.
“Scam centers in Southeast Asia are a persistent and growing problem for Americans,” he said.
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