Recently, U.S. federal prosecutors have carried out a major operation related to crypto fraud. Gennine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, announced that $5.8 billion worth of cryptocurrency has been seized from criminal networks operating in Southeast Asia. The work is being carried out by a special fraud task force jointly operated by the FBI, the Secret Service, and the U.S. Department of Justice.

The main focus of this operation is to stop “pig butchering” scams running in countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. Pirro said that her office will legally seal the seized funds and will try to return them to the victims.

But there’s an interesting point here—blockchain analytics platform expert Deddy Lavid said that although the $5.8 billion seizure is significant, it is only a small part of global crypto fraud. According to analysts like Deddy Bears, approximately 27,000 active criminal groups have been identified that could be linked to around $275 billion in fraud.

In addition, Pirro linked these Southeast Asian fraud networks to Chinese organized crime. Lavid also said that these networks are rapidly becoming more centralized, involving operators from multiple countries and international money laundering centers. This shows how sophisticated and organized crypto fraud has become.