Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Wednesday announced a new Scam Center Strike Force that aims to go after Chinese organized crime syndicates and scam centers in southeast Asia that have targeted Americans with fraudulent cryptocurrency investments.
Pirro spoke during a news conference, noting that the fraudsters scammed Americans out of more than $9 billion in 2024 alone, though experts estimate that number could be up to 15 times higher due to underreporting of crimes.
“They prey on older Americans because of their loneliness,” Pirro said, adding that the scammers reach out on social media platforms seemingly by mistake, gain the victim’s trust and move the conversation over to encrypted communication platforms.
The crime groups then shuttle their victims from legitimate crypto platforms to fraudulent platforms that the scammers themselves have created, Pirro said.
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“My office will not stand by as these Chinese organized crime enterprises empty out the bank accounts of hardworking Americans. Many, of course, left without the ability to go back into the workforce,” Pirro said.
The mission of the strike force is to identify and charge the leaders of such cryptocurrency scam organizations, to trace the stolen funds and return them to victims and to seize and disable the U.S. infrastructure, such as websites, being used to conduct the scams.
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Pirro said the strike force has already seized $400 million and filed actions to seize an additional $80 million that will be returned to victims.
The Treasury Department simultaneously announced sanctions against an armed group based in Burma, known as the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), and four of its leaders for supporting cyber scam centers in the country that target Americans using investment fraud schemes.
The Treasury Department also identified Trans Asia International Holding Group Thailand Company Limited, Troth Star Company Limited and Thai national Chamu Sawang as having worked with the DKBA in the past in connection to scam centers and as being linked to organized crime in China.
“Criminal networks operating out of Burma are stealing billions of dollars from hardworking Americans through online scams,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley. “These same networks traffic human beings and help fuel Burma’s brutal civil war.”
Pirro added that companies such as Meta, Microsoft and AARP have reached out to work with the strike force to help protect Americans from being scammed.
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