The United States Department of Justice has celebrated the results of its Scam Center Strike Force’s recent “Disruption Week” operation, which targeted cyber-enabled and cryptocurrency fraud operations in south-east Asia.
In collaboration with the Australian Federal Police, Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, New Zealand Police, the Royal Thai Police, and UK National Crime Agency, and partners from the private sector, including Apple, Coinbase, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Silent Push, SpaceX, TRM Labs, and Zenlayer, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said more than US$3.8 million in cryptocurrency assets were frozen and more than 1.4 million social media and email accounts were disrupted.
Investigators from the FBI, the US Secret Service, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations all provided private sector partners with the intelligence needed to identify malicious activity across their various networks.
Much of this activity takes place out of “industrial scale compounds” across the region, including in Cambodia, Laos, and Burma.
“Cyber-enabled and crypto investment fraud is devastating Main Street Americans, wiping out life savings and preying on some of our most vulnerable citizens,” Pirro said in a 4 June statement.
“Disruption Week shows what is possible when governments and private industry focus their efforts in tandem: millions of scam accounts interrupted, and criminal networks pushed off the US internet platforms on which they rely. This week’s results show our commitment to disrupting these schemes and protecting the American public.”
FBI director Kash Patel said his agency is leveraging “everything at its disposal to impose cost on criminals stealing from the American people through fraudulent investment schemes that have caused immense harm across the country”.
“One of the best tools we have in combating these illicit actors is our partnerships, and they are only getting stronger,” Patel said.
“We’re preventing further victimisation by working with other agencies, our foreign law enforcement counterparts, and the private sector, who have all taken part in this Disruption Week.”
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David Hollingworth
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.