White House officials said President Donald Trump planned to use a cybercrime event to highlight U.S. action against overseas crypto-scam groups, BlockBeats reported on Oct. 22. The event was described as planned, so the report did not establish that the remarks had already been delivered.
Reported enforcement figures
The groups were described as using romance scams, phishing and ransomware to steal from U.S. citizens. The U.S. government said agencies had intercepted about $833 million in crypto assets linked to overseas scams, seized 503 fraudulent crypto websites under a Homeland Security working group and notified nearly 9,000 Americans that they were being scammed.
“Intercepted” is the government’s wording in the report and does not establish that assets were returned to victims.
Cross-border task force
BlockBeats said the Treasury Department had formed an interagency task force focused on organized “pig-butchering” groups operating from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines. It also reported that the United States had imposed sanctions since last year to cut support for scam websites and infrastructure. The figures and actions are attributed to the cited government accounts.