A recent civil forfeiture filing by the US Department of Justice has exposed a massive cryptocurrency laundering operation tied to Southeast Asian scam compounds, with a Manila-based firm connected to the gambling industry emerging as a potential enabler.
The case, filed in the District of Columbia, seeks the forfeiture of approximately $225 million in USDT (Tether) that was allegedly laundered through a network of at least 144 accounts on Seychelles-based crypto exchange OKX. The accounts are believed to have been operated by organized crime groups involved in so-called “pig butchering” schemes – confidence scams targeting victims worldwide via fake online investment platforms.
Victims were duped into transferring crypto assets to 93 deposit addresses controlled by scammers, who then funneled the funds through hundreds of intermediary wallets and high-frequency transactions designed to obscure the money trail. The funds were ultimately consolidated into seven crypto wallets, now frozen by US authorities.
Critically, the US Secret Service and FBI traced multiple accounts to a company identified as ITECHNO Specialist Inc, a call center in Manila. The company, which previously posted job listings for Mandarin-speaking customer service staff, appears to have recruited foreign workers and offered to sponsor travel to the Philippines. While the complaint stops short of alleging direct involvement in scam operations, photos of staff wearing ITECHNO-branded lanyards were found among Know-Your-Customer (KYC) documents used to open fraudulent OKX accounts.
Sources within the compliance sector told Asia Gaming Brief that ITECHNO had previously been associated with providing BPO (business process outsourcing) services for gaming-related firms in Manila’s offshore industry. While no licensed operator has been named in the US filing, the reference to ITECHNO raises fresh questions about the blurred lines between BPO providers serving legitimate gaming clients and those co-opted by criminal networks.
The DOJ notes that many of the IP addresses used to access the suspicious OKX accounts originated from the Philippines, while the identification documents used to open the accounts were Vietnamese – a pattern consistent with known trafficking routes for labor used in illegal gambling and scam operations across the region.
The complaint also documents staggering volumes of movement: over 263,000 transactions involving $2.94 billion in virtual currency over a one-year period. Though gambling companies are not named as perpetrators, industry observers say the findings are a wake-up call for all operators and service providers involved in cross-border payments or who engage third-party marketing agents in Southeast Asia.
The US action is one of the largest of its kind targeting crypto-based fraud, and comes amid mounting pressure on exchanges, tech platforms, and payment processors to clamp down on transnational scam syndicates.
