DOJ Scam Crackdown Wipes Out 3.7 Million Accounts

The Justice Department says a coordinated Joint Disruption Week hit scam networks run from West Africa, producing arrests, seizures and the largest takedown ever of fraudulent social media accounts tied to scam centers in the region. The effort ran during the week beginning October 6 and was hosted by Britain's National Crime Agency in London, according to the department. It was the first coordinated effort aimed specifically at West Africa.

FBI Director Kash Patel said partners across several African countries arrested dozens of criminal actors, seized hundreds of devices and identified at least $11 million in potentially freezable funds. The department counts 28 arrests by an international consortium of law enforcement agencies. Meta says it removed more than 3.7 million accounts, Pages and Groups targeting people in the U.S., UK and beyond, and shared leads on over 30 suspected scam centers with law enforcement, leading to dozens of arrests, the rescue of trafficking victims and cryptocurrency seizures.

The department says the schemes included law enforcement impersonation, digital arrest extortion, cryptocurrency investment fraud known as pig butchering, and other online fraud. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 72,984 investment scam reports in 2025, with cryptocurrency investment fraud making up 72 percent of that category, the department says. It describes the West African scam centers as organized enterprises that recruit workers, train them in social engineering and run fraud campaigns across many platforms, much like those uncovered in Southeast Asia.

Participants included the Scam Center Strike Force, the Treasury Department, Homeland Security Investigations, the Homeland Security Task Force, Nigerian and Ghanaian cybercrime units and INTERPOL, according to the department. Meta says it and 14 other tech companies joined law enforcement from ten countries. TVC News reports the FBI and the National Crime Agency joined the effort, and that the Justice Department scheduled a virtual briefing for October 13 to announce the results. The department's media advisory listed expected speakers including U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Ferris Pirro, the FBI's Matthew B. Floyd, the NCA's Nick Sharp and Meta's Rob Cochrane, according to TVC News.