The fraud park is not a few buildings: from the criminal chain in Southeast Asia to the responsibility of the party state under Xi Jinping

From the air, some of the scam parks in Sihanouk, Cambodia, are not like secret crime sites. High-rise buildings, hotels, casinos, office buildings and walls make up a complete set of commercial buildings.

On September 15, Brian Mast, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Special Committee on Chinese Communist Affairs, wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent,Requests to investigate foreign individuals and entities that are reliably associated with the Southeast Asian Cyber Fraud CenterThe two lawmakers targeted not the individual scammers, but the financial, commercial and political support networks behind the scam center.

Case materials released by the Treasury and the Justice Department over the past year have broken up a fraud park into several interdependent parts: some own land and casinos, some provide armed protection, some recruit or traffick labor, some manage fraud teams, some set up fake investment websites, and others are responsible for swapping money into crypto assets and transferring it to the international financial system.

The park needs properties, but also needs protectors

U.S. Treasury imposes sanctions on Cambodia’s senator and businessman Kok An and his network in April 2026The agency said its controlled casinos, resorts and other properties were used for fraud centers, the Treasury Department said the parks were targeted by U.S. victims for digital asset investment fraud, and that some of those who performed the fraud themselves were victims of human trafficking and worked under the threat of violence.

The U.S. Treasury Department has previously sanctioned Karen National Army and its associates for providing protection to the Border Fraud Center in Myanmar, and another armed group, Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, and its associates have subsequently been sanctioned for supporting the fraud center.

A park therefore has two faces at the same time: for victims, it is the source of fraudulent phone calls and fake investment websites; for local power networks, it may be a real estate, casino, security and cash flow business.

The person in front of the computer may also be the person locked inside.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the Shunda fraud park case in April.The two Chinese defendants, Huang Mou and Jiang Mou, respectively served as senior managers, executives and team leaders.The prosecutor accused one of them of participating in physical punishment for trafficking workers in the park, and the other was responsible for overseeing a fraud team targeted at Americans; his subordinates had cheated more than $3 million from an American victim through a fake investment platform.

The same operation also blocked a Telegram channel with more than 6,000 followers, according to the Justice Department, which has been used to lure recruits to Cambodia for high-paying jobs; some of them were restricted on arrival and forced to pretend that bankers, New York police or lawyers were deceiving American victims.

The most cruel part of this chain is that crime and forced labor can happen in the same room. A person who is seized of passports, bound by debt or threatened with violence can still make another victim’s lifetime savings stolen on the other end of the computer. Identifying a victim of human trafficking does not mean ignoring the damage caused by fraud; investigating the responsibility of managers and criminal groups, or simply treating all the park staff as voluntary criminals.

After the money has left the victim’s account

The U.S. Department of Justice took action against the Cambodian Huione Group in JuneThe Department of Justice refers to its affiliated that helped the fraud and other criminal proceeds transfer over the blockchain and converted funds into the legitimate banking system. The U.S. Treasury Department has previously taken steps to cut off the Huione Group’s connection to the U.S. financial system.

According to the Department of Justice, more than $36.9 million from a Cambodian cyber scam had been transferred through US shell companies, international bank accounts and digital asset wallets, where funds were converted into USDT after entering the Bahamas bank accounts and then transferred to Cambodian-controlled wallets and scam centers. In January 2026, Chinese accused Su Jingliang was sentenced to 46 months in prison for participating in money laundering activities.

It’s closer to a multinational supply chain: Property provides space, local power or armed protection, human trafficking networks provide labor, technical teams build websites and communications infrastructure, fraud teams look for victims, underground finance and crypto asset channels responsible for laundering the money out.

But if the investigation stops here, there’s still a layer behind: Why are some Chinese criminal groups able to long-term link casinos, real estate, armed relations, financial channels and cross-border political relations in Southeast Asia?

The connection between criminal groups and the Chinese power system

According to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Committee of the U.S. Congress in 2025,Chinese crime networks operating South East Asian fraud centersOn the one hand, by supporting the “Belt and Road” project, promoting pro-Beijing political narratives and joining organizations with the color of war, the political identity is established, and on the other hand, the report continues to operate transnational crime, especially discussing cases such as the Asia-Pacific New City in Chongqing and the East American park of Yin, and believes that some criminal groups have obtained resources or political legitimacy using the “Belt and Road” brand and relations with Chinese officials and state enterprises.

More direct allegations appeared in the U.S. case later against Prince Group. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission updated documents in 2026 citing the U.S. Department of Justice's prosecution information that Prince Group was informed in advance of law enforcement actions to obtain protection.Officials of the Ministry of Public Security and National Security of ChinaInternal members of the group also use the relationship with Chinese officials as a basis for protection.The case pushed the exchange of potential interests between fraudulent capital and personnel within China’s national security and public security systems to the level of judicial investigation.

From the chain of crime protection to the responsibilities of the Party State under Xi Jinping

Focus on China believes that discussing these cases can not forever stop in "a few Chinese criminal acts overseas".Since Xi Jinping's rule, the Communist Party has further strengthened the Party's centralized leadership over public security, national security, diplomacy, unification and the state-owned system; "One Belt and One Road" has also become an important framework for China's expansion of political and commercial influence in Southeast Asia.When criminal figures can rely on Beijing's political narrative "One Belt and One Road" project or their relationship with Chinese officials, and the U.S. cases have emerged accusations of bribery to seek protection from public security and national security personnel, the issue has entered the level of how the party's power and criminal capital crossed.

In recent years, the Chinese government has been able to massively repatriate fraudsters from places like Myanmar and Cambodia, and to focus on fraud networks through cross-border police cooperation.This just shows that Beijing is not lacking in national capabilities to influence these networks. A more sharp question arises: Why has such a large Chinese fraud industry expanded in Southeast Asia for years?

The U.S. Congress Committee that the former 14K leader re-established a business network in Southeast Asia after leaving jail, while forming himself as a "patriotic businessman" supporting the Chinese political narrative, organizing the "Great Revival of the Chinese Nation" and appealing to Beijing's position on issues such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. The U.S. Committee suggested that Beijing had selective tolerance for some criminal networks that could serve its overseas agenda.

Under Xi Jinping’s rule, power concentration means that political responsibilities are also more concentrated. Public security, national security, unified warfare, diplomacy and “One Belt and One Road” related political resources are not completely isolated private systems, but are in the state machinery led by the Communist Party of China. When transnational crime capital can find relationships in these systems, buy law enforcement information, use political slogans to identify and long-term operations around countries with significant influence in China, the problem cannot be interpreted as the corruption of a few grass-roots officials or the personal crimes of a few Chinese businessmen.

The focus of China's judgment is: What really needs to be investigated is why Xi Jinping's system of power under the party country can make political relations a resource for crime capital to try to buy and exploit, and whether this highly concentrated structure of power produces a space for selective law enforcement, political trade protection and downward transfer of responsibility. The supreme power is constantly concentrating political, security and diplomatic resources, while long-term interpretation of systemic issues as grassroots corruption, overseas crime or individual violations of the law, is itself a model of governance worth considering.

On September 9, the U.S. Department of Justice also seized Xinbi, an illegal service market operated mainly in China. The Justice Department said the platform sold customized fraud websites, money laundering services and recruited victims of human trafficking to fraud parks; about $52 million in crypto-related assets were frozen that day. U.S. law enforcement is currently focusing on “China’s organized crime group” and its assistants, rather than just catching the grassroots executives on the other side of the phone fraud.

U.S. lawmakers on September 15 demanded an expansion of the sanctions investigation, but continued to push the subject of the investigation to the people and entities who provide financial, commercial and political facilities to the scam centers.

Following the public names of U.S. courts, the Treasury Department, the Justice Department and the Congress Committee, a picture has emerged that is much more complex than the “Overseas Chinese Fraud Group”: casinos and real estate provide space, armed groups maintain order, human trafficking provides labor, digital finance is responsible for money laundering, and political relations may become another asset for criminal groups to seek protection, legitimacy and law enforcement intelligence.

Inside the walls are fraudulent jobs; outside the walls are real estate, armed, financial and political relationships.The investigation of these multinational fraudulent groups has not reached the top of the criminal chain if it ultimately catches only those in front of the keyboard and does not continue to pursue the political and governance responsibilities of protecting networks, political and commercial relationships and the highly centralized party-state system under Xi Jinping.