Warner: Chinese Telegram and global fraud
The world of online fraud has become literally industrialised with volunteers and victims of human trafficking working in factory-like conditions. Many specifically target Chinese victims, both in and outside China and as our research shows, many are run offshore China by Chinese nationals several of whom are known to be of Interest to the Chinese authorities.
Here, I'm going to show a set of Telegram posts to show a bit more about how we see the Crypto Investment Scam world when we spend time investigating Telegram in the Chinese language.
Buying the domain may have been trivial - it was registered only last month. It imitated "TickMill" - a legitimate exchange that is not authorised in the USA. This particular fake website is likely to have been more popular in the UK, Europe and South Africa where the "real" TickMill is popular*.
The scam compound the fake was linked to, Tai Chang, has already been sanctioned. It was founded by Brigadier General Sai Kyaw Hla, a leader of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, recently renamed "The Democratic Karen Benevolent Army", nominally a rebel group that is linked to the national Myanmar Army which seized control of government in 2021.
The web site was founded in cooperation with a company called "Trans Asia." They were all sanctioned by OFAC so the website seizure is an after-action from the main event. Trans Asia is based in Mae Sot, Thailand and has been involved with funding other developments around Myawaddy, including at Huanya Park and KK Park.
Other DKBA leaders who were sanctioned by the USA include Saw Steel, Saw Sein Win, and Saw San Aung. OFAC also sanctioned Trans Asia, and their CEO Chamu Sawang who is also known as Yu Jianjun.
US TREASURY/OFAC - Sanctions notices
Treasury Sanctions Burma Warlord and Militia Tied to Cyber Scam Operations
Treasury Sanctions Southeast Asian Networks Targeting Americans with Cyber Scam
The best way to learn what happens inside these and other compounds is to spend time researching them in Chinese language Telegram. I hope you will take the time to read the posts in the attached document. It's a small sample of what I found in one evening's work. This fake TickMill is the latest in the 25000+ websites we have been instrumental in shutting down.
DOCUMENT DOWNLOAD: PDF
* From the real Tickmill website
Where is Tickmill regulated?
Tickmill is a trading name of Tickmill Ltd, which is regulated by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA).
Tickmill is also a trading name of Tickmill UK Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom and the Dubai Financial Services Authority as a Representative Office, of Tickmill Europe Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) and of Tickmill South Africa (Pty) Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
About this section
Opinion pieces or "Op-Eds" are the home-made bombs of the publishing world. So long as they meet editorial standards, are not intentionally offensive with a view to causing hurt or insult and are relevant to our field of endeavour, we will look at submissions.
We like contentious, we like contrarian views. We don't like pretty much any -ism . We recognise that Opinion pieces are one person's view and are not balanced (if they are balanced and reach a reasoned conclusion, they are probably more suited to the Articles section). We do not like acronyms and buzzwords.
Op-Eds are the author's personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of World Money Laundering Report or its publishers.
To submit an Opinion piece, please complete the Contact form.
