U.S. federal authorities have seized more than $25 million in cryptocurrency through five investigations into international fraud operations. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Secret Service Washington Field Office announced the recoveries on July 21, stating that the assets are linked to schemes that targeted residents of the United States and Canada.

Prosecutors filed five civil forfeiture complaints seeking permanent confiscation of the funds. The cases were handled by the agencies’ Cyber Fraud Task Force and form part of broader efforts to disrupt cross-border scam networks that move proceeds through layered cryptocurrency transactions.

Breakdown of the Five Cases

The two largest complaints account for roughly 85 percent of the total value targeted for forfeiture. One seeks approximately $12.1 million connected to romance scams that affected more than 200 victims. Scammers routed the proceeds through hundreds of intermediary wallet addresses and mixed them with funds from other victims.

A second complaint seeks about $10.4 million. Canadian authorities had flagged a network of suspicious wallets to the Secret Service. Investigators then traced more than 270 transactions tied to fraudulent investment platforms.

The remaining three cases involve smaller but related patterns of fraud. One complaint seeks roughly $1.2 million from an operation in which a victim invested through an apparently legitimate cryptocurrency platform that later blocked withdrawals and cut off contact. Another seeks nearly $2.4 million after two victims transferred funds to the same fraudulent platform; agents froze assets across six wallet addresses. The smallest complaint seeks approximately $285,000 from a recovery scam in which perpetrators claimed they had retrieved previously stolen funds and demanded an upfront fee.

Overseas Laundering Networks

Investigators determined that several key suspected money launderers are based in Southeast Asia. Internet protocol addresses connected to the activity pointed to China, Malaysia and Cambodia. The pattern aligns with known industrialized scam operations that rely on layered laundering routes spanning multiple jurisdictions.

Authorities described the five investigations as active. Secret Service investigators continue working to identify the individuals behind the networks and are coordinating with domestic and international partners.

Wider Scale of Crypto-Enabled Fraud

The seizures contribute to more than $800 million recovered through the Scam Center Strike Force, an initiative launched by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in November 2025. The force has expanded coordination with technology companies, cryptocurrency businesses and foreign law enforcement agencies, including actions against Southeast Asian scam compounds.

In May 2026, a Scam Center Strike Force Disruption Week disrupted more than 1.4 million scam-linked social media and email accounts. Participating companies froze more than $3.8 million in cryptocurrency, and Thai authorities arrested seven suspected scammers.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2025 Internet Crime Complaint Center annual report recorded 1,008,597 complaints and $20.88 billion in reported losses, a 26 percent increase from the prior year. Investment fraud accounted for about $8.65 billion of those losses, while cryptocurrency appeared in 181,565 complaints.