U.S. Department of Justice: Fraud Strike Force Freezes, Seizes $580 Million in Cryptocurrency Assets

BlockBeats News, February 27: The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced that the "Fraud Center Strike Special Task Force," established in November 2025, has taken action against a Southeast Asian fraud network, freezing and seizing over $580 million in cryptocurrency assets.

The task force, led by the U.S. Department of Justice and involving the FBI, Secret Service, Treasury Department, and other agencies, focuses on combating transnational scam groups operating in Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and other areas. Prosecutor Jeanine Pirro stated that the related assets will be confiscated through legal procedures and returned to the victims as much as possible.

The so-called "pig slaughter" scam usually tricks victims into buying cryptocurrency through social engineering, then controls and transfers funds through fake investment platforms or apps. Interpol had previously identified the Southeast Asian fraud hub issue as a global threat. In September 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also sanctioned 19 entities in Myanmar and Cambodia, with related fraud activities causing over $10 billion in losses in 2024.

The CEO of the blockchain analytics company Cyvers stated that although the $580 million seizure scale is "substantive," it is still only the tip of the iceberg compared to the overall global cryptocurrency fraud scale. The company has identified around 27,000 active criminal groups, with a potential fraud risk exposure of about $27.5 billion.

The U.S. side also pointed out that some Southeast Asian scam networks have links to organized crime in China, but industry analysis believes that these structures are increasingly decentralized and hybrid, showing characteristics of multinational cooperation and parallel cross-border money laundering.