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FBI Operation Blackout scam compounds

The FBI has taken down a global network of scam compounds operating across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. In a single coordinated effort known as Operation Blackout, authorities seized 127,000 Bitcoin valued at $8 billion and arrested nearly 300 individuals spread over three continents. These were not ordinary call centers. They functioned as criminal factories where trafficked workers were held at gunpoint and compelled to carry out pig butchering crypto scams, romance fraud, and extortion schemes aimed at Americans. One victim alone lost $3 million in a single romance scam. According to the FBI, the true scale of losses far exceeds anything that victims actually report. At the center of the operation stood Chen Zhi, who served as CEO of Cambodia's Prince Holding Group. He had constructed what appeared to be a legitimate business empire to conceal the criminal activity underneath. The compounds extended to Dubai, Thailand, and Myanmar. Nine separate compounds in Dubai each generated around $6 million annually. Authorities also intercepted thousands of smartphones that had been moved out of Thailand. In Myanmar an armed militia with connections to Chinese organized crime was taken apart. Starlink contributed by supplying geolocation information to the FBI, which resulted in the suspension of 7,000 terminals in Myanmar. Kash Patel described the sites plainly, saying they were not call centers but criminal enterprises designed to steal, launder money, and exploit victims on a massive scale. In one particularly unsettling detail, the FBI reached out to 8,935 individuals who were in the middle of being scammed at that very moment. Seventy seven percent of those contacted had no clue that anything was wrong. Thanks to the intervention, $562 million was prevented from leaving those people's accounts before they even realized they had become targets. That marks a new record. Still, with $64 billion stolen from victims worldwide each year, the $8 billion seized in this action represents only about one bad month for the scam industry. Source: FOX NEWS

3mo

Jolyon@jolyon

Follow

FBI Operation Blackout scam compounds

The FBI has taken down a global network of scam compounds operating across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. In a single coordinated effort known as Operation Blackout, authorities seized 127,000 Bitcoin valued at $8 billion and arrested nearly 300 individuals spread over three continents. These were not ordinary call centers. They functioned as criminal factories where trafficked workers were held at gunpoint and compelled to carry out pig butchering crypto scams, romance fraud, and extortion schemes aimed at Americans. One victim alone lost $3 million in a single romance scam. According to the FBI, the true scale of losses far exceeds anything that victims actually report. At the center of the operation stood Chen Zhi, who served as CEO of Cambodia's Prince Holding Group. He had constructed what appeared to be a legitimate business empire to conceal the criminal activity underneath. The compounds extended to Dubai, Thailand, and Myanmar. Nine separate compounds in Dubai each generated around $6 million annually. Authorities also intercepted thousands of smartphones that had been moved out of Thailand. In Myanmar an armed militia with connections to Chinese organized crime was taken apart. Starlink contributed by supplying geolocation information to the FBI, which resulted in the suspension of 7,000 terminals in Myanmar. Kash Patel described the sites plainly, saying they were not call centers but criminal enterprises designed to steal, launder money, and exploit victims on a massive scale. In one particularly unsettling detail, the FBI reached out to 8,935 individuals who were in the middle of being scammed at that very moment. Seventy seven percent of those contacted had no clue that anything was wrong. Thanks to the intervention, $562 million was prevented from leaving those people's accounts before they even realized they had become targets. That marks a new record. Still, with $64 billion stolen from victims worldwide each year, the $8 billion seized in this action represents only about one bad month for the scam industry. Source: FOX NEWS

3mo