The United States and United Kingdom have formed a first-of-its-kind enforcement alliance to pursue overseas cryptocurrency scam centres blamed for almost $10 billion in annual losses in the US.
The agreement creates a framework for parallel investigations, intelligence sharing, jurisdictional coordination and prioritisation of cases involving international cryptocurrency and cyber-enabled investment scams.
The joint framework was established on 3 September by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales and the U.K. National Crime Agency. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, Crown Prosecutor for England and Wales Stephen Parkinson, and National Crime Agency Director General Graeme Biggar signed the agreement on behalf of their organisations.
The participating agencies will investigate common targets simultaneously, share information about organised crime syndicates and decide where cases of mutual interest should be prosecuted.
The move follows a separate agreement on 27 August, when the UK secured support from the Five Eyes intelligence partnership – comprising the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – for quicker intelligence exchanges and coordinated action to disable accounts, communications channels and financial services used by international scam networks.
The U.S. Scam Center Strike Force began operating in November 2025, focusing on Chinese transnational criminal organisations running compounds primarily across Southeast Asia. Its initial Justice Department mandate brought together prosecutors, the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service and other agencies to target fraud, money laundering, digital infrastructure and cryptocurrency activity connected to operations in Cambodia, Laos and Burma.
According to the FBI’s annual internet crime findings, reported internet crime losses reached $20.88bn in 2025. Cryptocurrency-related losses accounted for $11.37bn of that total, while investment fraud generated $8.65bn in reported losses. Cryptocurrency investment fraud alone was responsible for about $7.2bn, making it the biggest source of reported financial losses suffered by Americans.
Scam centres commonly use schemes known as “pig butchering”. Criminals make contact through unsolicited messages, social media, dating applications and fake investment platforms, gradually building trust before persuading victims to transfer cryptocurrency.
Authorities say many compounds depend on trafficked workers who are held in coercive conditions and forced to defraud people. Warning signs of cryptocurrency fraud include guaranteed returns, unsolicited investment proposals, copied websites and requests for passwords or recovery phrases.
President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies on 6 March to develop stronger operational, diplomatic, technical and regulatory responses to foreign scam centres. Executive Order 14390 called for an action plan identifying the criminal organisations involved and setting out measures to prevent, disrupt, investigate and dismantle their operations.
Financial disruption has become a central part of the campaign against scam compounds and their international money-laundering networks. By April, federal authorities had restrained more than $700m in cryptocurrency allegedly connected to scam-centre laundering. The State Department also offered a reward of up to $10m for information leading to the financial disruption of Burma’s Tai Chang scam centres.
In a separate enforcement action, prosecutors sought the forfeiture of approximately 127,271 BTC, worth about $15bn when the case was filed, from Cambodian businessman Chen Zhi. The record bitcoin forfeiture action formed part of wider pressure on alleged operations across Southeast Asia and other regions involving cryptocurrency fraud, organised crime, money laundering and human trafficking.
Public-private efforts have also focused on the communications and financial systems that allow overseas networks to target Americans. During a disruption campaign in May, participating companies interrupted more than 1.4 million scam-linked accounts and helped freeze more than $3.8m in cryptocurrency.
US and UK authorities will work with private-sector partners at a disruption event hosted by the National Crime Agency in London in early October.
American and British regulators are also widening cooperation on cryptocurrency, tokenisation, payments, artificial intelligence and financial resilience. The initiative connects new…
