DOJ, Coinbase and SpaceX freeze $3.8M in crypto sweep

The U.S. Department of Justice led a multi-day operation called “Disruption Week” that brought private companies and law enforcement agencies together to disrupt fraud networks operating in Southeast Asia. The effort froze more than $3.8 million in cryptocurrency and prompted arrests, the DOJ said Wednesday.

Participating private firms included Apple, Coinbase, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Silent Push, SpaceX, TRM Labs and Zenlayer. U.S. intelligence and enforcement partners included the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and Homeland Security Investigations. Foreign partners named in the operation were the Royal Thai Police, Australian Federal Police, Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, New Zealand Police and the U.K. National Crime Agency.

The sweep identified and disabled criminal infrastructure linked to investment and romance scams. Coinbase reported it froze more than $3 million in crypto tied to the networks. The broader operation disabled more than 1.4 million accounts, terminated thousands of Starlink kits and resulted in 63 arrests across multiple countries, the DOJ said. The Royal Thai Police Anti-Cyber Scam Center arrested seven suspects in Thailand.

Investigators decommissioned servers, colocation facilities and other hosting infrastructure used by the scam groups. Several individual scammers and entire scam platforms were identified and referred to U.S. authorities for further inquiry and possible prosecution.

“One of the best tools we have in combatting these illicit actors is our partnerships and they are only getting stronger,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in the DOJ release.

Data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center showed reported losses from cryptocurrency investment fraud increased 24% to more than $7.2 billion in 2025, up from $5.8 billion in 2024 and $3.96 billion in 2023. Authorities have linked many of the schemes to large scam compounds in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar near the Thai border, where workers are recruited with promises of high-paying jobs and then forced to run fraud operations.

Dozens of individuals and platform operators are now under review by U.S. prosecutors and international counterparts. Agencies said additional enforcement actions are possible as investigations continue.