The United States and the United Kingdom have launched a first-of-its-kind joint law enforcement alliance targeting scam centers behind crypto and cyber-enabled investment fraud, signing a memorandum of understanding that promises parallel investigations, shared intelligence, and a private-sector disruption operation in London planned for early October.
The US Department of Justice announced on Thursday that the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales, and the UK National Crime Agency signed the agreement, which the DOJ described as the first international cooperation pact of its kind aimed at disabling scam centers outright. The move escalates a global crackdown that has accelerated since scam compounds multiplied across Southeast Asia over the past several years.
Under the memorandum, the agencies will conduct parallel investigations into common targets, share information on organized crime syndicates, and coordinate on which jurisdictions should prosecute specific cases. The DOJ said the authorities have already identified overlapping investigations and are planning an in-person disruption operation with private-sector partners in London in early October, suggesting the alliance will produce concrete enforcement actions within weeks rather than years.
Losses climbing toward nine billion USD
The cross-border pact arrives as reported US losses from crypto investment fraud continue to climb at an alarming pace. Losses reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center surged 89 percent to 8.65 billion USD in 2025, up from 4.57 billion USD in 2023, according to the DOJ. Those figures cover only reported cases, and enforcement officials have repeatedly warned that the true scale of pig butchering schemes, fake investment platforms, and romance-driven crypto fraud is substantially larger.
The agreement expands the Scam Center Strike Force, which US Attorney Jeanine Pirro launched in November 2025 to target Chinese organized crime networks operating scam centers primarily in Southeast Asia. According to the DOJ, these operations run crypto investment fraud schemes that are frequently linked to human trafficking and money laundering, with workers at the compounds often held against their will and forced to defraud victims around the world.
The task force is a whole-of-government operation. It includes the FBI, the US Secret Service, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and Justice Department offices, while also working with the US Treasury and State Department alongside private companies to disrupt scam operations and recover victims’ funds. The addition of British prosecutors and the NCA extends that architecture across the Atlantic, where London has become a recurring hub for laundering fraud proceeds through property and luxury assets.
A global enforcement template
International authorities have already demonstrated what coordinated raids can achieve. On April 29, the DOJ reported a Dubai police-led operation involving the FBI and China’s Ministry of Public Security that resulted in 276 arrests and the closure of at least nine crypto scam centers. Six people were charged over schemes that allegedly used fake crypto investment platforms to solicit deposits from victims. Operations of that scale were rare two years ago; the new US-UK alliance is designed to make them routine.
Southeast Asian governments have simultaneously pursued tougher domestic measures. On May 15, Myanmar’s military government released draft legislation proposing sentences ranging from ten years to life imprisonment for digital currency fraud, with the death penalty possible in cases where people coerced into working at scam centers were killed. The bill was approved by Parliament on July 28, though presidential assent has not been confirmed.
For the crypto industry, the alliance sends a two-sided signal. Legitimate platforms stand to benefit as coordinated enforcement squeezes the fraudulent operations that erode public trust and drive restrictive legislation. But the pact also means heightened scrutiny of the financial rails that scam centers abuse, including exchanges, mixers, and stablecoin issuers whose services appear in the laundering chains investigators trace. Recent enforcement patterns, including civil suits over frozen funds connected to pig butchering cases, suggest the private sector will feel pressure from both directions.
The London disruption operation in October will be the first major test of the alliance. If parallel US-UK investigations produce synchronized seizures and arrests, expect the model to be copied by other jurisdictions, and expect the cost of running industrial-scale scam operations to keep rising.
Market snapshot: Bitcoin trades near 81,430 USD, up roughly 5.2 percent in 24 hours, with ETH at 2,504 USD and SOL near 105 USD as of the latest CoinGecko data.
parallel investigations and a joint disruption op in london within weeks. cps and nca actually coordinating with the doj is a bigger deal than the press release suggests
9 billion in reported losses and thats just what got filed. most victims never report anything, real number is way higher
probably double or more, pig butchering runs on shame. people dont tell anyone they got taken
shame is the business model. by the time a victim calls the fraud line the mule accounts are three hops gone and the trail is cold
9 billion is just what got filed. pig butchering runs on shame, most victims never call the fraud line, real number is a multiple
half the pig butchering victims i have read about never even tell family, let alone file a report. 9 billion filed is probably a quarter of the real damage
9 billion in losses and it took this long for two agencies to sign a memo. the london disruption op in october better actually freeze assets and not just produce a press release
parallel investigations into the same targets is the interesting bit. if the US and UK actually split cases by jurisdiction instead of fighting over headline convictions the syndicates lose their favorite shell game
About time someone targeted the compounds themselves instead of arresting the trafficked workers. These crews relocate within a week of any raid, so shared intelligence is the only thing that actually hurts them.
this. the relocation timeline matches the un reporting on the myanmar border camps, compounds back up within days of every raid so far
the london op including private sector firms is the genuinely new part. banks and exchanges freezing transfer routes does more damage than any single raid
Banks flagging the transfer routes mid-scam is the actual kill shot. By the time police act the mule chain is three hops cold.