The FBI is widening its international pursuit of sprawling scam compounds that heavily target Americans, especially senior citizens.
FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News Digital that Operation Blackout has seized roughly $17 billion connected to the schemes.
Operation Blackout is the bureau’s global campaign to identify, disrupt and dismantle foreign scam compounds targeting Americans.
Its tactics include overseas raids, asset seizures, interrupted communications, efforts to rescue trafficked workers and attempts to return stolen money to victims.
Patel said the bureau led initiative is pursuing criminal syndicates that operate enormous scam compounds across Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Trafficked workers inside those operations are forced to commit fraud against victims thousands of miles away.
“Unfortunately, the majority of the targets are senior citizens in America ,” Patel said.
The schemes reach potential victims through social media, telephone calls, text messages and Telegram.
“Our initiative, Operation Blackout, is to prevent, disrupt, and dismantle,” Patel said. The campaign is aimed not merely at individual scammers, but at the physical compounds, communications systems and financial assets supporting their operations.
Victims have described the painful personal damage caused by the schemes. One victim told the FBI, “At 71 years old, I’m old enough to know that people my age are certainly often targeted because of our unfamiliarity with certain new technologies. Thanks so much for looking out for us.”
Another victim connected the crackdown to a devastating loss within the family. “I watched my grandmother lose her life savings to scammers and I would love to see them all be put away,” the victim said.
One common scheme begins when criminals develop an online friendship or relationship with a prospective victim. The scammers eventually direct that person toward what appears to be a cryptocurrency investment platform, but is actually fraudulent.
Victims may initially see information indicating that their investments are generating substantial returns.
The ugly truth arrives when they attempt to withdraw the money and discover that they cannot access it.
Patel described the size of the compounds in blunt terms. “These are towns, these are cities,” he said.
“These are actual villages with structures where they force people into forced labor.”
An operation conducted in August at Cambodia’s O’Smach Resort scam compound offered a glimpse at that scale.
The roughly 200 acre site was searched across 28 buildings during a three day operation, according to the FBI.
Authorities seized 113 hard drives, 15 computers and 35 boxes of evidence during the Cambodia action. Those figures illustrate the volume of infrastructure and potential evidence housed inside a single scam compound.
The FBI is also trying to reach Americans before their savings land in the criminals’ hands.
Operation Level Up, the domestic prevention component working with the U.S. Secret Service, proactively identifies and contacts potential victims of cryptocurrency investment scams.
The bureau said it has notified 10,406 victims and prevented an estimated $660 million in losses.
Authorities have also seized or frozen another $122 million in cryptocurrency linked to the effort.
The FBI said 77% of the people it contacted had no idea that they were being scammed. It also referred 99 victims for suicide intervention, seized 584 scam websites and sent 7,670 scam accounts to private companies for action.
The international campaign has extended beyond Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
In September, a Justice Department Scam Center Strike Force team that included FBI Honolulu personnel assisted authorities in Madagascar with taking down 13 scam centers operated by Chinese organized crime syndicates.
Authorities processed more than 3,200 electronic devices as part of the Madagascar action. Patel said the activity reflects a broader geographic migration by the criminal networks as enforcement pressure follows their operations.
“That’s why you’re seeing the migration of these scam compounds to central and sub-Saharan Africa, which is where we are already pre-positioned to take them off,” Patel said.
Operation Blackout is positioning the FBI to pursue the syndicates as their compounds shift into new regions.