Coinbase freezes $3M in Southeast Asia crypto scam takedown

Crypto exchange Coinbase said it froze more than $3 million in cryptocurrency tied to a global operation targeting cyber-enabled scam networks in Southeast Asia.

The action was part of Disruption Week, led by the US Department of Justice's Scam Center Strike Force, which assembled government agencies and private companies to address crypto fraud aimed at Americans. "This operation is proof that scammers can't be stopped by any single company or agency acting alone," Coinbase said. "It took social platforms, financial institutions, connectivity providers, and law enforcement working in lockstep to hit these networks at nearly every point in the fraud chain — online accounts, financial flows, and physical infrastructure all at once."

The operation also involved Meta, Microsoft and Starlink, which worked together to take down servers and other hosting infrastructure linked to scam networks, disrupting criminal activity across more than 1.4 million social media and email accounts and leading to several arrests by the Royal Thai Police Anti-Cyber Scam Center.

Investment fraud and pig butchering are among the fastest-growing and most financially devastating forms of fraud targeting Americans, according to the DOJ. The FBI reported earlier this month that Americans' losses from crypto- and AI-related scams in 2025 exceeded $11 billion, with investment scams the most damaging.

"We know crypto sometimes gets an unfair reputation when it comes to illicit finance. The reality is the opposite. Blockchain technology gives law enforcement something traditional financial systems often can't: a transparent, immutable and permanent record of every transaction," Coinbase added. Source: US Attorney DC.

Other members of the coalition included the FBI, the US Secret Service, and law enforcement partners in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Thailand.

Related: OFAC sanctions Cambodian politician linked to pig butchering scam centers.

Meta said it shared "actionable insights" from all those involved, which helped "connect the dots between disparate pieces of information across platforms. The collective effort of these tech companies enabled the operation to target and disrupt criminals at nearly every point in the fraud chain."

Authorities around the world have been heavily targeting scam infrastructure this year. In April, the US Scam Center Strike Force and its law enforcement partners hit scam centers and froze more than $701 million in crypto linked to investment scams. Meanwhile, a Dubai police-led international crackdown on scam rings resulted in the arrest of 276 individuals and the shutdown of at least nine crypto scam centers. In another action involving Austrian and Albanian authorities, with support from Europol and Eurojust, 10 people were arrested in connection with three scam centers in Tirana, Albania.

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