KASH PATEL: Global partners are joining Trump's FBI to take down scam empires for good

The FBI has launched a historic effort to eliminate global scam center fraud that steal Americans’ life savings and fuel some of the world’s most vicious criminal networks. These scam centers are industrial-scale compounds located in cross-border regions on the other side of the world that are run by transnational criminal syndicates that torture workers, steal and launder billions and target Americans and our allies alike. It is a massive, highly sophisticated web of criminality.

Thanks to President Donald Trump’s decisive leadership and prioritization of the battle against scam centers, this FBI has taken the lead in the fight — treating scam centers as a top priority threat to our public and a crucial part of our no-fail mission to crush violent crime and defend the homeland.

Fifteen months ago, we laid out a playbook to dismantle the problem. We went to the source and launched an initiative in Southeast Asia, working with partners in India, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and more to scuttle compounds and disrupt their communications capabilities. We joined our private sector technology and financial industry partners to trace infrastructure, seize malicious domains, follow the money, and hunt down the funding streams for their leadership. We launched sweeping ops like Operation Blackout to identify, locate, and annihilate the largest international scam compounds in the region.

In just over a year, this playbook has delivered historic results.

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In April, working side-by-side with Dubai Police and China’s Ministry of Public Security, the FBI led Operation Sand Dollar — the largest scam center takedown in our history. We hit nine scam centers run by Asian organized crime actors, made 311 arrests, and seized thousands of devices that had been used to target Americans in the United Arab Emirates. Each of those centers was stealing roughly $6 million a year. Shutting them down meant saving victims $54 million in losses — just from a single operation. 

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Or look at our work against the Prince Holding Group in Cambodia, a transnational criminal empire running guarded compounds that pumped out global scams. Our takedown, Operation Zephyr Exodus, led to an indictment of their CEO for wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy, and the forfeiture of roughly 127,000 Bitcoin — about $15 billion at the time and the largest forfeiture in U.S. history — ripping out the financial engine of a criminal syndicate that used its ill-gotten gains to attack everyday Americans.

In another operation, we went after the Tai Chang scam compound in Burma, operated by Chinese criminals. We seized domains and $30 million tied to this and other compounds. One more op — a joint effort between the FBI’s Bangkok office and our Thai partners — took down the Shunda compound, linked to hundreds of millions in losses. They’d used a Telegram channel with over 6,000 followers to recruit forced labor into a Cambodian law enforcement impersonation scam — and we seized it.

We are not just reacting after the damage is done. Through Operation Level Up, an FBI initiative supported by the U.S. Secret Service and other partners, we are proactively identifying potential victims in real time. So far, we have notified nearly 9,000 people, about three-quarters of whom did not know they were being scammed. We have prevented an estimated $562 million in losses and referred dozens of people for suicide intervention. That’s what it means to treat this as a no-fail mission.

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The scale of our global offensive against scam centers is unprecedented. We’ve now opened more than 30 FBI cases, pursued or helped restrain assets valued at more than $15 billion, and helped drive hundreds of arrests. We’ve suspended more than 7,500 terminals, cutting off the internet lifeline that powers thousands of scam devices at a time — thanks to this FBI’s tremendous partnership with the private sector. And just this past week, we hosted the FBI’s first-ever Scam Center Summit in Thailand – bringing together partners from 18 countries and hundreds of law enforcement agencies, igniting our mission to ensure scam centers can never again take a foothold in the region.

Through these actions, we haven’t just protected Americans; we’ve freed thousands of trafficking victims from forced-labor compounds. And we’re just getting started.

None of this is possible if we work alone. defend the homeland from global scam centers, we rely on ironclad partnerships, with the Royal Thai Police, Dubai Police, China’s Ministry of Public Security, Cambodian National Police, Indonesian National Police, and India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, to name a few our allies across Southeast Asia. When we combine our world-class intelligence capabilities, overseas law enforcement access, sanctions, and cutting-edge technology, these criminals have nowhere to hide.

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What’s next? At our Scam Center Summit, I informed our partners we would be bulldozing these compounds to show the world what full mission success is and challenged them to be the first to participate in this historic effort. We will also continue to target every level of syndicate leadership to ensure total dismantlement of these organizations is achieved. Action is what matters, and it is what this FBI will continue to deliver thanks to the Trump administration.

This FBI will keep driving forward and dismantle compounds, seize billions, rescue trafficking victims, return people’s life savings, and rubble these networks. They may think they can target Americans from safe havens overseas. Perhaps they should read the above.

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