The Chinese judiciary is seeking new powers to combat financial and cryptocurrency-related crimes, as the United States announces major seizures from Southeast Asian scam networks, highlighting a global regulatory offensive against illicit crypto activity.
In China, the Supreme People’s Court stated it aims to strengthen judicial responses to new types of financial crime, specifically naming cryptocurrencies. Wang Chuang, director of the court’s Second Civil Division, emphasized the need to research and formulate unified standards for crypto cases. The move follows a report from Chainalysis indicating Chinese-language money laundering networks processed 20% of illicit crypto funds over the past five years, amounting to over $16 billion in 2025 alone.
Legal expert Ma Hongwei explained the judiciary wants to create comprehensive laws to enable stricter punishments, moving beyond reliance on legal precedent. Chinese courts handled over 2.7 million financial cases last year, a 2% rise from 2024, with many involving crypto. The Supreme Court called crypto "a new financial field that needs to be studied" while formulating regulatory responses. This aligns with recent actions from the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), which reiterated bans on crypto trading and speculation, and prohibited most yuan-pegged stablecoins and real-world asset projects.
In the United States, the Scam Center Strike Force, a multi-agency task force involving the DOJ, FBI, and U.S. Treasury, announced it has frozen and seized over $580 million in cryptocurrency from Southeast Asian crime networks operating in countries like Burma, Cambodia, and Laos. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro stated the force is making "significant progress" and aims to forfeit and return funds to victims.
The force targets transnational criminal networks behind "pig butchering" scams, which have cost victims billions. In September 2025, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned 19 entities in Burma and Cambodia linked to scams that cost over $10 billion in 2024. Despite the large seizure, blockchain analytics firm Cyvers notes this represents only a fraction of global crypto fraud, which it estimates involves 27,000 active criminal groups and $27.5 billion in exposure.
U.S. authorities linked the Southeast Asian networks to "Chinese organized crime." Cyvers CEO Deddy Lavid provided nuance, stating that while a meaningful share of scam infrastructure has ties to Chinese Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs), the networks are increasingly decentralized and hybrid, involving local operators and cross-border laundering hubs.
