DOJ, Tech Firms Disrupt 1.4M Scam Accounts, Freeze $3.8M Crypto

The Justice Department and major technology and cryptocurrency companies disrupted more than 1.4 million social media and email accounts linked to transnational scam networks and helped freeze $3.8 million in cryptocurrency during a coordinated operation held May 18–21 in Washington.

The effort, called Disruption Week, was led by the DOJ’s Scam Center Strike Force and included the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service and Homeland Security Investigations. Private companies that participated included Apple, Coinbase, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Silent Push, SpaceX, TRM Labs and Zenlayer. Law enforcement partners from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Thailand and the U.K. also took part. Meta coordinated private-sector participation, according to the DOJ.

Officials targeted networks based in Southeast Asia that run crypto investment fraud schemes often known as pig butchering. In those schemes, fraudsters develop relationships with victims, encourage them to move money into fake investment platforms that display false gains, then transfer the funds out and steal them.

Participants suspended accounts, cut network connections and decommissioned servers and hosting infrastructure used by the scam operations. The companies provided transaction and account information that led to the freezing of more than $3.8 million in cryptocurrency believed to be proceeds of fraud. Coinbase reported it froze over $3 million in crypto assets and said blockchain transaction records were instrumental in tracing illicit funds. The exchange added the wider effort contributed to 63 arrests, the termination of thousands of Starlink kits and the freezing of additional criminal assets.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro described the operation this way: “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 U.S. internet platforms on which they rely.” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva warned the United States faces an “unprecedented threat from industrial-scale, foreign organizations looking to prey on citizens” and that new forms of coordination are required.

Thai authorities arrested seven people and the Royal Thai Police Anti-Cyber Scam Center opened new cases tied to the operation. Investigators identified several suspects and platforms for possible U.S. prosecution.

Federal data show reported losses from investment scams rose from $3.96 billion in 2023 to $5.8 billion in 2024, and exceeded $7.2 billion in 2025. Crypto-related fraud accounted for a large share of those reported losses in earlier years; officials say actual losses are likely higher because many victims do not report crimes.

Investigators also reported allegations that some fraud operations are run from large compounds in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar near the Thai border, where workers were reportedly recruited with false job offers, stripped of identity documents and forced to operate scams under threats of violence. The DOJ and its partners described the operation as an effort to disrupt the technology and financial infrastructure those networks rely on and to support further criminal prosecutions.