Department of Justice Announces Results of Law Enforcement and Private Industry Joint Disruption Week Targeting Online Scam Accounts and Transnational Criminal Networks[...]

WASHINGTON - Transnational criminal scam networks operating from West Africa suffered major disruptions last week during a coordinated international "Joint Disruption Week," an effort that produced arrests, seizures, and the largest-ever takedown of fraudulent social media accounts linked to scam centers in the region, announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.

"Transnational fraud demands a transnational response," said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro for the District of Columbia, founder of the Scam Center Strike Force. "I have partnered with the NCA and the Crown Prosecutor for England and Wales to push forward cases on both sides of the Atlantic; criminals are not hindered by borders and neither are we. We will deploy our team wherever in the world transnational criminals target innocent victims."

"Criminals beware: Law enforcement from around the world are working together, and with private industry, to find you, stop your schemes, and bring you to justice," said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "The Criminal Division's Cyber-Enabled Scam Initiative (CSI) was built for this brand of collaboration. The millions of bogus social media accounts taken down and dozens of arrests that took place as part of Joint Disruption Week are just the beginning. I want to thank the United Kingdom (UK)'s National Crime Agency (NCA) and its Director General, Graeme Biggar, for hosting this effort, as well as everyone who participated. I am especially grateful to the courageous law enforcement officers in Ghana and Nigeria who put themselves in harm's way to seize evidence and arrest the criminals who prey on innocent people."

The "Joint Disruption Week" events mark the first coordinated effort focused specifically on West Africa, underscoring the growing global commitment to dismantling increasingly sophisticated transnational scam networks.

The operation included members of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Scam Center Strike Force under the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, FBI, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF), the UK's NCA, the Nigerian Joint Case Team on Cybercrimes, the Nigeria Police Force - National Cybercrime Center, Ghanaian Cyber Security Authority, and private sector partners.

Additional participants included law enforcement agencies from Australia, Canada, Ghana, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, along with INTERPOL and additional cybercrime units. Several tech giants also played a key role. The large-scale effort was hosted by the UK NCA in London.

"Thanks to brilliant partnership with the Department of Justice and the private sector, across multiple African countries, we arrested dozens of criminal actors, seized hundreds of devices, identified at least $11 million in potentially freezable funds, and truly saved lives," said FBI Director Kash Patel. "This is what happens when law enforcement executes with precision across the interagency. We are demolishing Scam Centers across the globe and crushing a criminal industry preying on American citizens."

"Fraud is a global problem and it takes partnership working across international boundaries to tackle it," said Nick Sharp, Deputy Director of Fraud at the NCA. "Hosting such a rich and dedicated team of law enforcement and technology companies at NCA's headquarters enabled us to utilize the power of partnerships and strike back at a significant set of criminals who inflict misery on thousands of victims of fraud. Fraudsters can operate from anywhere and will target victims both domestically and globally. The NCA will continue to work with international and private sector partners to tackle fraudsters working upstream, overseas and online. Collaborating in this way sends a clear signal to criminals that the combined capabilities of law enforcement and industry means that we will relentlessly pursue them and the infrastructure they rely on no matter where they operate."

During the week beginning Oct. 6, investigators and industry partners exchanged real-time intelligence across jurisdictions, enabling rapid identification and disruption of scam centers in Nigeria, Ghana, and other African countries. Many of the targeted operations were tied to schemes victimizing individuals in the United States, UK, and other countries around the world.

Several private industry partners, including Meta, Adobe, Binance, Coinbase, Cyjax, Elliptic, Chainalysis, Flashpoint, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Silent Push, Starlink and TRM Labs collaborated with international law enforcement in the event, and voluntarily took action on their own networks to disrupt scammers using their platforms to perpetrate fraud. These companies reported to the Department that they "removed more than 3.7 million accounts, Pages and Groups targeting people in the U.S., UK and beyond, and shared leads on over 30 suspected scam centers with law enforcement, resulting in dozens of arrests, the rescue of trafficking victims, and cryptocurrency seizures. In total over $11 million dollars in potential freezable funds were identified by the private sector partners. Meta played a key role in coordinating the event and encouraging broad private sector participation to maximize scam compound disruption.

Among the key accomplishments:

A consortium of international law enforcement agencies made 28 arrests of individuals tied to the criminal scam operations, including:

• In Ghana, in the Accra suburb of Sasaabi, authorities arrested 19 individuals and seized 303 electronic devices. In addition, authorities identified 117 victims of human trafficking that are now pending repatriation to Nigeria. An additional 89 victims of the scam were identified with an approximate loss of $8.3 million. During the last week of September alone, authorities made scores of arrests at six locations, identified 34 trafficking victims, and seized 129 electronic devices. The Ghana operation was led by the Ghana Cyber Security Authority, Ghana Police Service Criminal Investigation Department, National Security Service, with support from the NCA, FBI, and Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

• In Nigeria, authorities arrested nine individuals during the enforcement period, and 53 electronic devices.

• The disrupted schemes included law enforcement impersonation scams, digital "arrest" extortion schemes, cryptocurrency investment fraud (also known as "pig butchering"), and a variety of other online fraud operations targeting global victims.

According to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), investment scams were reported 72,984 times in 2025, with cryptocurrency investment fraud comprising 72 percent of that category. Reported losses from these scams rose from $3.96 billion in 2023 to $5.8 billion in 2024. Reported losses for investment scams with a cryptocurrency nexus rose 24 percent in 2025 to over $7.2 billion, according to IC3's released 2025 annual report. Those figures, based largely on victim reports, are believed to significantly underrepresent actual losses, as many victims do not report to law enforcement. According to one government report, a conservative estimate of the annual value of funds stolen by scam syndicates worldwide approached $64 billion as of the end of 2023.

Strengthening Accountability for Transnational Scam Operations

Criminal scam centers operating in West Africa mirror those uncovered in Southeast Asia - highly organized enterprises that recruit workers, train them in social engineering, and deploy multi-platform fraud campaigns targeting global victims. While technology companies can significantly disrupt online infrastructure used to perpetuate these schemes, true accountability requires sustained law enforcement action against the individuals and organizations behind them.

The FBI, The Scam Center Strike Force, and its international partners remain committed to advancing this model of public-private collaboration and expanding global efforts to dismantle criminal networks responsible for online fraud.

For more information about the Scam Center Strike Force click here.

Individuals found at Ghana scam center.

Scam center in Ghana.

U.S. Federal agencies working at NCA in London.

Electronic devices seized in Ghana.

Electronic Devices Seized in Ghana

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