The United States and United Kingdom have formally launched a new joint law-enforcement alliance aimed at dismantling transnational scam centers responsible for cryptocurrency and cyber-enabled investment fraud.
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 signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday establishing what the Justice Department described as the first international cooperation agreement of its kind focused specifically on disabling scam centers.
The agreement calls for parallel investigations, increased intelligence sharing and coordination over which jurisdiction is best positioned to prosecute common targets.
Authorities have already identified overlap between existing investigations. The agencies also intend to conduct an in-person disruption operation with private-sector partners in London in early October.
The Justice Department says these scam-center operations are producing approximately $10 billion in annual losses to victims. FBI data cited by prosecutors show reported U.S. crypto investment-fraud losses rising from $4.57 billion in 2023 to $8.65 billion in 2025, an increase of approximately 89%.
Many of the targeted networks operate from large scam compounds in Southeast Asia and have been linked not only to cryptocurrency theft but also to money laundering and human trafficking.
The alliance expands the U.S. Scam Center Strike Force into a more formal international operating structure, potentially allowing investigators to attack the criminal networks, digital infrastructure and financial rails supporting them simultaneously.
TOKEN RECON ASSESSMENT
Crypto fraud has become too international for national investigations to operate in isolation.
The important shift is from tracking stolen assets after the fact to coordinated disruption of the organizations running the scams.
If the October operation produces meaningful seizures, arrests or infrastructure shutdowns, this alliance could become a template for broader multinational crypto-fraud enforcement.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice — September 3 announcement
