TechFlow News, April 30: According to Fox News, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in collaboration with law enforcement agencies in Dubai, China, and Thailand, conducted a large-scale multinational joint operation that successfully dismantled at least nine overseas cryptocurrency scam centers and arrested 276 suspects, with losses amounting to several million U.S. dollars.
In this operation, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California filed federal charges of wire fraud and money laundering against six suspects. Among those charged are nationals from Myanmar and Indonesia who operated scam organizations under names such as “Sanduo Group” and “Giant Company.” Dubai police arrested 275 suspects, while the Royal Thai Police apprehended one additional fugitive.
These scam networks employed the “pig-butchering” scam method—fabricating friendships or romantic relationships to gain victims’ trust, then luring them into transferring funds to fake cryptocurrency investment platforms before laundering and transferring the proceeds to criminal accounts.
This operation aligns with the executive order signed by President Trump on March 6, 2026, targeting overseas criminal networks that exploit U.S. citizens. The FBI’s dedicated “Operation Level Up” has notified approximately 9,000 victims and recovered roughly $562 million in losses for U.S. citizens. The FBI urges victims to report incidents through the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
