US Seizes $580M in Crypto From Southeast Asian Scam Networks

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, along with federal law enforcement, announced that the Scam Center Strike Force has frozen and seized over $580 million in cryptocurrency from Chinese criminal groups. 

According to the official release, the criminals ran scams from Southeast Asian countries like Burma, Cambodia, and Laos, targeting Americans online. Pirro said this is the main purpose of the Strike Force: to recover stolen money and stop these networks from defrauding more people.

“Through the legal process, my Office will seek to forfeit these funds and return them to victims to the maximum extent possible,” Pirro said. She highlighted authorities’ efforts to fight against cryptocurrency scams that steal nearly $10 billion from Americans every year.

Inside the ‘Pi Butchering’ scam

The scams, called “pig butchering,” trick people by gaining their trust online. The scammers convince victims to invest in real cryptocurrency and then move the money to fake websites and apps. Many of these scams are run from compounds in Southeast Asia, where trafficked workers are forced to participate. 

According to the report, these workers are often forced to scam people, kept against their will, abused, and guarded by armed groups. Some compounds make so much money that it counts for almost half of the country’s economy in those areas.

The forces behind the strike force

The Strike Force is a collaboration of multiple agencies, including the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, DOJ divisions such as CCIPS and the Fraud Section, the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, and the IRS Criminal Investigation Unit.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen P. Seifert leads the team for the DOJ, while Rick Blaylock and John Borchert handle cryptocurrency seizures with the help of the Secret Service and FBI. Offices from San Francisco to Washington D.C., work together to find, freeze, and take back stolen crypto.

Recent sanctions on scam centers

Meanwhile, this comes as the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 19 entities in Burma and Cambodia in September last year. These sanctions were put in place to stop scams that had already taken over $10 billion from victims in 2024. 

Recently, Amnesty International reported that many trafficked workers escaped from these camps in Cambodia, which caused a humanitarian crisis. The people who ran these scams forced these workers to commit fraud. Interpol has also called these compounds a global threat because of their size and links to international crime networks.

The Strike Force said it is working to find and apprehend these international crime syndicate leaders in these areas, recover the stolen funds, and protect Americans from losing even more money.

Also Read: From Gunpoint Robbery to ₹3.49 Cr Scam: India’s Crypto Crime Crisis