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The United States and United Kingdom have formed a first-of-its-kind law enforcement alliance against crypto scam centers, signing a memorandum of understanding to jointly investigate and dismantle the compounds behind crypto investment fraud — a response to losses that reached $8.65 billion for American victims last year alone.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Sept. 3 that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales and the UK's National Crime Agency signed the agreement — which the DOJ calls the first international cooperation pact specifically designed to disable scam centers carrying out cryptocurrency and cyber-enabled investment fraud. U.S. authorities estimate such schemes cost Americans approximately $10 billion a year, and FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center data cited in the announcement shows reported losses from cyber-enabled investment fraud climbing 89%, from $4.57 billion in 2023 to $8.65 billion in 2025 — nearly 85% of all losses reported to the center last year, a figure the DOJ cautions likely understates reality since most fraud is never reported.
How the crypto scam center alliance works
Investigators from both countries will pursue parallel investigations into common targets, exchange intelligence on organized crime syndicates and determine which jurisdiction should prosecute when investigations overlap — with several cases of common interest already identified. The signatories carry weight: U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro signed alongside Crown Prosecutor Stephen Parkinson and NCA Director General Graeme Biggar at the residence of UK Ambassador Sir Christian Turner. The first in-person disruption operation, hosted by the NCA and joined by private-sector companies, is planned for London in early October — a sign the pact is meant to produce operations, not press releases.
The alliance builds on the Scam Center Strike Force Pirro created in November 2025, which concentrates on Chinese organized crime groups running compounds across Southeast Asia and has seized more than $800 million since launch. A May enforcement initiative already previewed the multinational model: the NCA joined agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Thailand alongside private companies to disrupt more than 1.4 million social media and email accounts, while firms froze over $3.8 million in cryptocurrency linked to laundering stolen American funds. Coinbase froze more than $3 million linked to Southeast Asian scam networks during the effort, and Meta, Microsoft and Starlink acted against suspected fraud infrastructure. Seven suspected scammers were arrested in Thailand.
The scale of the machine being targeted
Recent enforcement actions illustrate the industry under attack. In April, U.S. authorities charged two Chinese nationals accused of managing a crypto investment fraud compound in Burma and attempting to establish another in Cambodia, with more than $700 million in crypto restrained through coordinated actions. Investigators seized 503 fake investment websites and a Telegram channel with over 6,000 followers used to recruit compound workers — some job advertisements explicitly sought workers who could speak with American accents and work U.S. daytime hours. Trafficked workers are held against their will and forced to run relationship-based schemes in which scammers build trust over weeks before introducing fake high-return platforms showing fabricated balances. An April international crackdown led to 276 arrests — 275 in Dubai — and the disruption of at least nine scam centers, the first joint China-U.S.-UAE action of its kind.
Regional governments are moving in parallel: Myanmar's parliament approved an anti-online scam bill on July 28, and UK sanctions have targeted the networks' crypto rails. The consumer-fraud side of crypto crime keeps innovating, and data breaches feed the same pipeline — which is why the DOJ treats scam compounds as transnational organized crime rather than internet nuisance.
For crypto's legitimacy, the pact is double-edged. It validates the industry's argument that fraud is a law-enforcement problem rather than a technology problem — the same framing behind market-structure bills advancing through Congress — while simultaneously quantifying the reputational drag: an $8.65 billion annual loss figure gives every crypto skeptic a headline number. The October London operation will show whether two of the world's most capable enforcement establishments, sharing intelligence for the first time under a dedicated pact, can actually reach compounds guarded in Southeast Asian jungle rather than just the wallets they leave behind.
