Sept. 22 (UPI) — The U.S. State Department imposed cybercrime-related visa restrictions on 32 individuals, most of whom are linked to Prince Group, a Cambodia-based conglomerate the Trump administration accuses of being a transnational criminal organization behind cyber scams targeting Americans.
The individuals blacklisted Monday were not identified by the State Department, whose spokesman, Tomas Pigott, accused in a statement of being “responsible for or complicit in defrauding Americans through cybercrime, cyber-enabled crime and related activity.”
Pigott said all those targeted Monday were involved in cybercrime and that the majority were affiliated with the Prince Group, which the United States designated a transnational criminal organization in October 2025, when Britain jointly imposed sanctions on the group in what the U.S. Treasury called at the time the “largest action ever targeting criminal networks in Southeast Asia.”
Based in Phnom Penh, the Prince Group has investments in entertainment, finance and real estate while also engaging in transnational crimes, such as the construction, operation and management of scam compounds that rely on human trafficking to conduct cyber fraud operations targeting victims around the world, according to the U.S. Treasury.
The Treasury sanctioned 146 targets, including Prince Group’s 38-year-old founder Chen Zhi, who also goes by Vincent, as well as 117 affiliated businesses in the initial Prince Group-related sanctioning, followed by an expansion of the sanctions to nine individuals and 26 entities in June.
Pigott said cybercriminals scam Americans out of tens of billions of dollars a year, including $18.2 billion last year alone.
“The Trump administration will use every available tool to protect Americans, dismantle criminal scam networks and impose costs on those who enable them,” Pigott said.
“Those complicit in devastating families and communities nationwide will be denied entry into the United States.”
South Korea and the European Union have also sanctioned the Prince Group.
Source: U.S. News
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