The United States and United Kingdom have established a new law-enforcement partnership aimed at dismantling international scam centers involved in cryptocurrency investment fraud and other cyber-enabled financial crimes.
The agreement brings together agencies from both countries to coordinate investigations, exchange intelligence and disrupt criminal networks operating across borders. Officials also plan to work with private-sector partners on a disruption operation in London in October.
New US-UK Partnership Targets Organized Scam Networks
The US Department of Justice announced that the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales, and the UK National Crime Agency have signed a memorandum of understanding.
The DOJ described the arrangement as a first-of-its-kind international framework specifically focused on disrupting scam-center operations.
Under the agreement, participating agencies will:
- Conduct parallel investigations against shared targets.
- Exchange intelligence on organized criminal groups.
- Coordinate decisions over where individual cases should be prosecuted.
- Identify overlapping investigations and criminal networks.
- Work alongside private companies on disruption efforts.
Authorities have already identified cases that overlap between the two jurisdictions. The agencies are expected to carry out an in-person operation with private-sector partners in London in early October.
The partnership comes as cryptocurrency-related investment fraud continues to generate significant losses in the United States.
According to figures cited by the DOJ, losses reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reached $8.65 billion in 2025, compared with $4.57 billion in 2023—an increase of approximately 89%.
Scam Compounds Become a Growing International Target
The new cooperation expands the work of the Scam Center Strike Force, established in the United States in November 2025.
The initiative focuses heavily on organized crime groups operating scam compounds, particularly networks associated with Southeast Asia. US authorities say some of these operations combine cryptocurrency investment fraud with human trafficking and money laundering.
The broader US task force includes the FBI, US Secret Service, IRS Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and Justice Department personnel.
It also coordinates with the Treasury and State departments, as well as private-sector companies involved in identifying criminal activity and tracing or recovering stolen funds.
These operations frequently use fake investment platforms, fabricated trading opportunities and social-engineering tactics to convince victims to transfer cryptocurrency.
International Raids Have Already Disrupted Scam Operations
The US-UK agreement follows several international enforcement actions targeting similar networks.
In April, the US Justice Department reported an operation led by Dubai authorities involving the FBI and China’s Ministry of Public Security. The operation reportedly resulted in 276 arrests and the shutdown of at least nine cryptocurrency scam centers.
Authorities also charged several individuals over alleged schemes involving fraudulent crypto investment platforms that were used to obtain money from victims.
The activity demonstrates the increasingly international nature of crypto fraud investigations, with criminal groups, victims, payment infrastructure and digital assets often spread across multiple countries.
Southeast Asia Tightens Its Response
Governments in Southeast Asia have also been pursuing tougher measures against cryptocurrency-related fraud and scam compounds.
Myanmar’s military government proposed legislation in May that would impose severe prison sentences for digital-currency fraud. The proposed penalties reportedly ranged from 10 years to life imprisonment, with the possibility of capital punishment in cases involving the deaths of people forced to work inside scam facilities.
Myanmar’s Parliament approved the legislation on July 28, although confirmation of presidential assent was not available at the time of the report.
Private Sector Plays a Larger Role
The US and UK initiative highlights the increasing importance of cooperation between governments and private companies in combating crypto-enabled crime.
Blockchain transactions can leave publicly visible records, allowing investigators and analytics firms to trace the movement of funds between wallets, exchanges and other services. At the same time, criminal organizations can use cross-border infrastructure, intermediaries and increasingly sophisticated social-engineering techniques to complicate investigations.
By combining government intelligence with information held by private companies, authorities hope to identify scam networks more quickly and disrupt their financial infrastructure before additional victims are targeted.
The planned London operation in October will provide an early test of how effectively the new US-UK framework can translate information sharing into coordinated action against international cryptocurrency scam networks.
