The U.S. Justice Department's Scam Center Strike Force froze and seized more than $578 million in cryptocurrency over its first three months of operation, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro announced - the largest publicly disclosed enforcement haul against Southeast Asian "pig butchering" fraud networks.
The task force, formed in November 2025, targets Chinese transnational criminal organizations running fraud compounds in Burma, Cambodia, and Laos.
By January 2026, the initiative had already recovered $402 million in digital assets.
Thursday's figure incorporates those earlier seizures plus approximately $80 million in additional forfeiture proceedings filed Wednesday - bringing the total above the $578 million threshold Pirro cited.
How the Schemes Work
Pig butchering fraud - named for the practice of "fattening" victims before stealing from them - combines social engineering with cryptocurrency infrastructure. Fraudsters establish trust with targets through social media and text messages before steering them toward counterfeit trading platforms that display fabricated gains.
The victim's real cryptocurrency is then drained through those fake applications. U.S. officials estimate annual losses to Americans at nearly $10 billion.
In some Southeast Asian jurisdictions where compounds operate, scam-generated revenue approaches half of gross domestic product, according to the Justice Department.
Workers inside the compounds are frequently trafficking victims held by armed groups against their will. Interpol elevated this model to a global threat designation in 2025. SpaceX disabled more than 2,500 Starlink devices in Burma earlier this year as part of the Strike Force's effort to sever the internet infrastructure used to run the operations.
The Broader Enforcement Context
The Strike Force brings together the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office, the DOJ Criminal Division, the FBI, the Secret Service, and IRS Criminal Investigation.
Its focus is not just asset recovery - investigators are tracing funds across exchanges and wallets to identify senior organizers and money launderers before proceeds are dispersed through shell accounts.
The operation runs against an expanding illicit landscape. According to Chainalysis's 2026 Crypto Crime Report, illicit cryptocurrency received by identified addresses totaled at least $154 billion in 2025 - a 162% year-over-year increase, driven primarily by a 694% surge in activity tied to sanctioned entities. Stablecoins accounted for 84% of that illicit volume.
Chinese money laundering networks processed approximately $16.1 billion through nearly 1,800 active wallets in 2025, per the same report, offering laundering-as-a-service to fraud operations of the kind the Strike Force is targeting.
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