The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) identified nearly $13 billion linked to digital asset investment scams operated by overseas scam centers.
The sophisticated fraud operations, also known as "pig butchering," "romance baiting," or "cryptocurrency confidence schemes," use fake personas and social engineering tactics to manipulate victims—often Americans—into transferring funds to fraudulent digital asset investments, according to FinCEN.
The scams are largely perpetrated by transnational criminal organizations based in Southeast Asia that operate industrial-scale scam compounds with vast networks of criminal actors, the agency said.
FinCEN urged financial institutions to be vigilant about the fraud schemes and to report suspicious activity.