Cryptocurrency record: FBI seizes record amount of digital tokens

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has conducted the largest cryptocurrency confiscation in its history, with seized assets estimated at $ 8 billion. FBI Director Kash Patel said that the operation lasted nine months and united several large-scale proceedings against transnational criminal groups operating in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

The criminals used the so-called «scam farms» — closed camps where they held people and forced them to participate in online fraud through the «pig butchering» scheme. The essence of the scheme is the psychological manipulation of victims to steal their cryptocurrency. Among the victims were US citizens.

One of the key episodes of the operation was the case of Chen Ji, the former chairman of the Cambodian conglomerate Prince Holding Group. In October 2025, the US authorities confiscated 127,271 bitcoins from him. Before that, Chen Zhi was detained in Cambodia and extradited to China.

The FBI conducted joint raids in the UAE, Thailand, and Myanmar. In Dubai, 275 suspected members of the criminal network were detained, six of whom are being prepared for extradition to the United States. The groups were involved in online fraud, money laundering and moving funds through cryptocurrency services. During the raids, security forces released about 2,000 people who had been held in camps and forced to engage in telephone and online fraud.

The FBI engaged Elon Musk’s SpaceX company to block the criminals' infrastructure. At the request of the bureau, the Starlink satellite network blocked more than 7,000 terminals in Myanmar, which, according to investigators, were used by fraudsters in hard-to-reach areas of the country.

A separate area of the operation was the Operation Level Up program: using blockchain analytics tools, the FBI identified about 9,000 potential victims in the United States and warned them before they had a chance to transfer funds to the criminals. The potential losses of these people are estimated at $ 562 million.

The U.S. Department of Justice has stated that the seized assets will be used to compensate victims. The scale of the problem is also evidenced by other statistics: in 2025 alone, the FBI received more than 13,400 complaints from Americans who transferred money to fraudsters through cryptomates, with total losses exceeding $ 388 million.