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THE WASHINGTON FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.
MODERATOR: Well, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to the Washington Foreign Press Center. It’s so nice to have a full briefing room. Thank you so much for joining us. It’s my pleasure today to introduce our three distinguished guests. We have U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro; Assistant Director Heith Janke of the FBI’s Criminal Division, and Director of the Cyber-Enabled Scam Initiative at the Department of Justice, Richard Goldberg.
The topic of today’s briefing is: U.S. Leadership in Combating Foreign-Backed Criminal Networks that Exploit Americans Through Cyber-Enabled Fraud. The briefing is on the record, and we will share a transcript with you all later today. I’d now like to invite U.S. Attorney Pirro to offer her opening remarks.
MS PIRRO: Thank you very much. I am delighted to be here at the Foreign Press Center, and I’m delighted to be able to address you on something that we believe is a very important issue and one that, together, we can fight in a way that protects many people across different countries around the world.
In November of last year, my office created the first Scam Center Strike Force in the nation. The intent of the strike force was to address some of the transnational criminal organizations that were focused on victimizing people across the world, mainly in America, in a way where they are affecting their economics and in a way where they are getting them to actually get involved in cryptocurrency fraud.
Americans are being industrially looted every year by a massacre of individuals who are involved in scam centers primarily in Southeast Asia. We have been dealing with this for over a year. We have seized over a billion dollars in cryptocurrency during the course of that time. We’ve taken down more than 500 websites. We’ve seized Starlink terminals, Telegram channels. We have prosecuted many indictments. We are working on extraditing defendants from around the world. We have met with the leaders of foreign nations who are interested in assisting us, not only in terms of our identifying wrongdoers in possibly their country but also protecting the victims in their own country as well.
Some of these organizations recognize that the United States is the first primary target because of the economics of the United States and the wealth that we have. But many of them also focus on their own countries and other countries, and that’s why it’s taking a global approach to combat this global epidemic. And just recently this week, I announced the fact that over the last year, with more than 150 law enforcement agents, the strike force in the United States Attorney’s Office in D.C. has been attacking that threat in Southeast Asia.
But we are also now moving to Western Africa – Ghana and Nigeria. And just recently – yesterday, I believe – announced an operation in Madagascar. We are recognizing that these large transactional criminal organizations, or TCOs, they know that we’re after them. They know that we can find them. They know that our partnerships with private industry like Meta, Binance, TRM Labs, OpenAI, Microsoft, they know that we are finding them. And so what they are doing is they are adapting. They are creating smaller scam centers. They’re changing the way that they do business, because it’s always been about criminals committing old crimes in new ways. And that’s what we’re confronting today.
Yesterday I talked about the fact that scammers are now using the dating profiles. We know they’ve always used social media, but the dating profiles are getting a lot of attraction. And there are actually models who will identify themselves, they’ll do a video, they’ll send a picture. And that model may have not just that one victim who is falling in love with that model who’s been trained to target him and to get him involved, but she’s got another 20 other victims that she’s focusing on and creating a relationship at the same time. They then give them a tip on an NFT or some kind of cryptocurrency opportunity, and with their short videos or with the trust that they’ve developed, the victim is directed to a professional-looking NFT investment website, asked to connect their crypto wallet. As soon as they do that, they don’t need the victim’s permission to access that wallet, and then the funds are drained.
Scams like these are emotionally devastating. I have spoken to families where one man actually hung himself, there wasn’t enough money to bury him. We’ve got people who are embarrassed – doctors, lawyers. This is affecting everyone. And in the end, our focus is to work internationally with other countries because – like we did in London two weeks ago – this kind of fraud is making up about 57 percent of their crime.
And my final note: It’s not just economic fraud; it’s a national security problem for all of us. Thank you.
MODERATOR: AD Janke.
MR JANKE: Good afternoon. I’m Heith Janke, the Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal Division. And I want to thank our partners who I stand here with today, first with U.S. Attorney Pirro for her exceptional partnership, and for Director Goldberg and our partners at the Department of Justice and the Cyber-Enabled Scam Initiative.
First let me also thank you, the foreign press correspondents who are participating in today’s event. It is vital for you to help us spread this message across the world, and I thank you for being here to help us do that. This is not just a United States problem but a global problem that requires a global response. And let me be clear: The exploitation of people across the globe, from human trafficking victims coerced into scam compounds to families defrauded of their life savings by these transnational criminal organizations, they must be stopped.
Let me scope the issue for you in the United States. Last year’s IC3 report, which is our Internet Crime Complaint Center, reported $20.8 billion in loss to the FBI. Of that, more than $17.6 billion was attributed to cyber-enabled fraud schemes. These are only the numbers that are reported to the FBI. We know this is very underreported, not in the U.S. but across the globe. And let me also point out: Behind every one of those complaints is a real-life victim, as the judge was talking about. We don’t just see numbers; we see the victims and the devastation these groups are causing.
You’re probably wondering what are we doing about these criminal organizations, and thanks to Executive Order 14390, which was Combating Cybercrime, Fraud, and Predatory Schemes Against Americans, the United States Government for the first time has deployed a whole-of-government approach to combat the rise in international scam centers, leveraging not only our partnerships in government but with the private sector.
Now with that, Operation Blackout is the FBI’s global scam center demolition campaign. And so far, in conjunction with all of our partners in this, the results speak for themselves: Nearly $17 billion seized, hundreds of alleged scammers arrested, thousands of trafficked workers freed, 10,000 Americans warned before they could lose more, 77 percent of them that didn’t realize they were being scammed, and $670 million prevented from going to these criminal organizations. While we work and pull a government effort – or framework here in the United States, collaborating with our international partners is paramount to dismantling these criminal organizations.
Let me give you some examples of what we have accomplished this year with our international partners. In July, the FBI hosted the first-ever scam center summit in Thailand, bringing together representatives from nearly 20 countries to strengthen the global fight against the transnational criminal organizations. Also, earlier this year the Scam Center Strike Force worked together to disrupt the infamous Tai Chang compound in Burma. Working with private sector partners, we removed 2,000 accounts and seized $30 million in cryptocurrency. Similarly, FBI agents in the Scam Center Strike Force teamed up with local authorities in Madagascar to dismantle 13 Chinese-organized crime-run facilities and seized over 3,000 devices.
And finally, under Director Patel, the FBI has began coordinating with China’s Ministry of Public Security, aimed at prioritizing the threats to include combating scam compounds. As a result of the partnership with China’s MPS, along with the Dubai police department, the FBI executed its largest driven takedown in our history, resulting in nine scam compounds dismantled, over 300 subjects arrested, thousands of electronic devices seized, and $300 million seized during those raids. In May in Washington, D.C. and again in October in London, the FBI and the Scam Center Strike Force brought together international law enforcement, government, and industry partners to strengthen our collective efforts against scam compounds in Joint Disruption Weeks.
While we are proud of what we’ve accomplished this past year with both our law enforcement and private sector partners, we are just getting started. Let me leave you with a final message. I will close with sending a message to the fraudsters: Preying on innocent people across the globe will not be tolerated. There is no safe haven, and we will hold you accountable. Justice will find you.
Thank you.
MR GOLDBERG: Good afternoon. I’m Rich Goldberg, director of the Cyber-Enabled Scam Initiative at the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. What is law enforcement to do when, routinely, fraudsters launch a scheme from one country, use communications infrastructure in another, and launder criminal proceeds through two or more additional countries, all while using cyber tools to mask where they’re located? This is the criminal modus operandi the Department of Justice faces every day in response to the evolving threats posed by cyber-enabled fraud.
This past summer, the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice launched the Cyber-Enabled Scam Initiative or CSI. CSI is a dedicated team of prosecutors built to find scammers who prey on Americans, disrupt their networks, and hold them accountable. We will also work to forfeit their ill-gotten gain and compensate victims wherever possible. CSI brings together subject matter experts in complex fraud and investment schemes, cyber crimes and dismantling cyber infrastructure, online child exploitation, international evidence-gathering and extraditions, overseas prosecutorial development and assistance, and financial tracing and asset forfeiture.
Historically, the Criminal Division has built strong partnerships with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices in 94 districts across the United States and law enforcement agencies to combat schemes that defraud American citizens by committing dozens of prosecutors drawn from different specialized Justice Department sections, with deep experience in fraud, cybercrime, money laundering, and international tools, CSI creates a force multiplier. It adds capacity and encourages coordination across the department, aggressively combatting these threats.
We have been and remain committed to working with Judge Pirro, U.S. Attorneys’ Offices across the country, the FBI, and all law enforcement partners both in and outside the United States to combat these threats. We’re also working in concert with the National Coordination Center’s Homeland Security Task Force in service of this mission.
With our partners, the Criminal Division is identifying the most harmful active cyber-enabled scam threats to the public in real time. We’ve prosecuted cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes in Southeast Asia, romance and business email compromise schemes in West Africa, lottery fraud schemes from Jamaica, drug cartels engaged in massive timeshare fraud schemes from Mexico. We’ve worked with Indian law enforcement to shut down tech support and government imposter fraud schemes throughout India.
The United States faces an unprecedented threat from transnational criminal networks preying on Americans. But the threat is also faced by countries around the world. CSI is most successful when we are working shoulder-to-shoulder with our foreign law enforcement counterparts from each of your nations. Criminal Division prosecutors have engaged in recent capacity-building events and trainings around the world, including in West Africa and Southeast Asia, where effective investigation cooperation is critical. We’re committed to using our tools and resources to enhance our ability and the ability of foreign counterparts to combat this scourge. We continue to seek and find allies around the world to further this mission.
Lastly, I’d like to agree with the FBI that we cannot do this alone. Members of the press here today form an important piece of the prevention puzzle. We cannot prosecute our way out of this problem. It is crucial that we – and you in the media in particular – get this issue in front of households around the world, to warn the public of these schemes and encourage law enforcement in your communities to do more.
We stand ready to cooperate and disrupt these criminal networks together. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much for those remarks. We will now turn to questions. If our briefers would like to move closer to the podium, you’re welcome to do so. We’ll start with questions in the room. Please introduce yourself, your outlet, and your country. We’ll start with Syed here in the front.
Microphone – just go ahead.
QUESTION: Thank you. It’s Faisal (inaudible) with Pakistan Daily. My question to the Attorney. So since we are aware of a lot of fraud in our circle that is related to South Asia, most of the countries over there – so how are you dealing with the law enforcement over there? Like, those countries also have cyber agencies and (inaudible) this space, and they’re also dealing with the (inaudible). Like Pakistan, they are transferring – they transferred a lot of terrorists to United States. So how are you dealing it separately, this related to cyber, and that is related to terrorism? Are you dealing it together or are you dealing separate?
MS PIRRO: Okay. So I understand your question to be: How are we dealing with law enforcement in the other countries, in – when we prosecute these cases? I think that is a crucial question, and I think all three of us would agree that we cannot and do not do this alone. When FBI deputy director talked about the London Disruption Week, we went there as a result of an effort to bring international partners together. I was in Qatar about a month ago. I will be in Singapore in a few weeks. I am then going to Bangkok. I was in India. I have been in Manila, in the Philippines. Everywhere I go, I work with law enforcement from that country. And the amazing part of this is in every country they are experiencing the same problem we are. This is not just affecting the United States; it’s cross – it’s global. It’s cross-border.
So I find that our efforts are being greeted with open arms by law enforcement just about everywhere. The important thing, however, is recognizing that in those countries where we do not have an extradition treaty – for example, for the six defendants that we indicted from Madagascar just this week – maybe we have an agreement with the United Nations, and Madagascar has an agreement with the United Nations, and together we can get them back, even though we don’t have an extradition treaty with that particular country.
The problem is that very often China will get involved in immigration and immediately repatriate the Chinese who are the ones who are involved in creating the scam centers. And that’s a problem. Because they just evolve into another scam center. And what was stated before I got here – I mean, there is no question, there are victims on the other end. The victims in these scam centers, in these large factories, which are run like a real factory with quotas and deadlines, the torturous part of it, they are – they are an operation that those individual countries are looking to destroy as well.
I don’t know if you want to add anything.
MR JANKE: I’ll just also say it’s important to the FBI. We have 250 personnel across 180 countries across the globe. Our law enforcement attaches in those countries are super important to this, of how we are building relationships, sharing intelligence amongst all of the cooperating countries, so that we can tackle that. Because the people we’re going after are not in the United States. Victims are here, but the criminal organizations that we need to dismantle are offshores of the U.S. So our law enforcement attaches in many of your countries are really the key of building those relationships.
MODERATOR: We’ll go right here.
QUESTION: Thank you so much for this briefing. I’m Saurabh Shukla, from Newsmobile in India. We also focus a lot on scams and frauds, because I believe it’s a human problem that you’re tackling. So under President Trump’s leadership, I know there’s been a lot of focus on tackling cyber scam and frauds. The G20 summit is happening in the U.S. in December. Do you recommend – have you recommended to the White House that the President then take it up with all the G20 leaders who are coming to the U.S.? Because as you said, the global coordination and collaboration is very important. And what are the challenges that you’re facing when it comes to stopping these scam centers from different governments across the globe when you deal with them?
MS PIRRO: Well, I think the point that you make is an excellent one. And the truth is the President – President Trump – is very much aware of this problem being a global problem, which is why he created the executive order in February of this year requiring that all of us make sure that we are involved in fighting these scam centers.
We also see this as a national security problem, when you have a foreign power that has allowed criminal groups to actually flourish and spread to other countries. It is certainly a concern that there are Chinese actors that have a vast amount of U.S. citizens’ personal data, and we take that very seriously. The President is well aware, and he doesn’t need me to tell him about that.
Do you want to add anything?
MODERATOR: Gentleman in the back with the gray.
QUESTION: Me?
MODERATOR: Sure. Go ahead.
QUESTION: Ali Gamal from Qatar News Agency. Yeah. There’s two parts. How the AI made the process – your process is more complicated and cryptocurrency as well? And also, the – some or most of the people who are works in scam centers are victims also. Did you think about making like hotline or something to – for them to contact you directly, so you have – get the information and then cooperate with the law enforcement in their countries?
MS PIRRO: Okay. You’re looking at me. Not only would I want to create a hotline, I’ll give them my number. Because if they call me, then we can find out, and the FBI can go in there and shut the whole place down. And I don’t mean to make light of it. There is a reality that there are victims, and we don’t know what’s happening to all those victims. There’s a lot going on that we can’t talk about, and I’m sure that Heith Janke can talk about that as well.
Let me just say one thing about Qatar. I met with many of the foreign officials there when I was over there. There is a tremendous effort on the part of Qatar to assist us in making sure that we have what we need to not only go after anyone who’s involved in these scams, but also to assist us in making sure that we get the individuals that we need. And I don’t want to go deeper than that; I think you’ll understand.
MR JANKE: Part of your first question was on AI too and the use of it. And yes, we are absolutely seeing that with these scam compounds. It is allowing them to move at greater speed, to be more resilient on how we catch them, and it’s easier for them to be able to take a victim and believe they’re actually real and who they say they are when they are using AI, and language learning models, and chatbots, and all of these things. So that is being used. It’s leading to greater victimization at faster speeds, which makes our response have to be in kind, as we are dealing with these compounds.
As far as human trafficking victims, I think we can all agree – basically real-life slavery happening, of someone applying for a job and showing up thinking this is where they are going to make more money than they could ever make in the country that they’re in, and when they arrive, they find out that is not the case and they are forced to do this job, forced to make quotas.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
MR JANKE: We can’t lose sight on the victims that are working within the compounds or the victims on the other side. We talked a lot about the crypto investment frauds, but the financially motivated sextortion – we have children in the United States that have decided to take their own lives at the hands of these cyber-enabled fraudsters that are doing the sextortion techniques also online. We have to realize we have victims on both ends of this, and this is why it’s a priority of the U.S. Government to shut them down.
MODERATOR: Natalia.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
MODERATOR: We’re going to – sorry, we have many, many questions to get to. Natalia, go ahead.
QUESTION: Natalia Cabrera from NTN 24 in Colombia. I would like to ask you if you have identified any of these networks in Latin America, and if the cooperation with the Shield of the Americas is now allowing you to work with the intelligence in South American countries for that goal.
And also, you’ve been leading this major crackdown on crime locally too. You said – confirmed that your office is investigating Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. I would like to know if you are close to making a decision on criminal charges against her. And she has denied these accusations, so I would like to have your stand on that.
MS PIRRO: Well, I would love to answer your second question, but since it’s not relevant to our discussion today, I’m not going to do that. Let me just say – and I think Heith can also add to this as well – we do have partners in Colombia and all over South America. They are – I don’t know that I would go into more than just telling you that we do. We are all over. I think as Heith indicated, the FBI is located in just about every country. You want to talk about Colombia?
MR JANKE: I would say not just talking specifically Colombia, but when we talk overall fraud, this is about greed. We find fraud schemes going on across the world. I don’t think it’s related to just any specific countries. Even when we look at cartels that are engaged in call centers in Mexico and timeshare frauds, which are public cases – we normally think of cartels, of drug and weapons trafficking, but when they can make money on online frauds too, we’ve seen that. So we just know it spans the globe.
MODERATOR: So we’re going to take one – a couple more in the room. Green blazer.
MS PIRRO: Why don’t you answer something.
MR GOLDBERG: One last thing to add on the last question. So we’ve seen networks in various South American countries. I mentioned in my remarks Mexican drug cartels that are engaged in timeshare fraud schemes, but we also have schemes out of Peru that we’ve been prosecuting over the last several years, entire networks of fraud devoted to victimizing Spanish-speaking Americans in schemes where they claim that they owe a debt and that they’re going to be arrested or deported, and basically lie to the consumers in order to threaten them into giving money themselves. So we’ve seen this victimizing Americans across the country and have worked to dismantle this entire network in Peru.
So these tend to be regional. You’ll see specific schemes that grow up in different parts of the world. This one was in Peru, others in Mexico. We’ve seen schemes in Colombia as well, but throughout South America there are similar networks.
MS PIRRO: And – and I’m going to add something to what Rich just said. Rest assured that where we haven’t seen them, we will see them. Because once they know we see them, they will be moving.
MODERATOR: Green blazer.
QUESTION: Thank you. I’m Janne Pak with USA Journal Korea. Just quick questions. What is the – your fundamental solution to block scammer or cyber hacking or cryptocurrency? Do you have any tools for the – specifically —
MS PIRRO: Are you talking about the victims?
QUESTION: Yes.
MS PIRRO: What is – okay. What is the fundamental instruction I would tell them?
QUESTION: Yes, yes.
MS PIRRO: Okay. First of all, never, ever go on an app that is a – considered a private app, like WhatsApp or Signal, as a result of a relationship, you’ve met with someone online. So it’s very simple. They reach out to you and 100 other people, all right? And someone is going to say, “Yes, although you got the wrong number. I’m sorry, you got the wrong number.” And then that’ll start a conversation. Most people are polite, and so they continue the conversation. Once they continue the conversation, they may be lonely. They move – the scammer moves that person after a few days or a few weeks to a kind of website where it’s not open, where it’s a WhatsApp or a Signal, or they’ll tell them, “I have an expertise in cryptocurrency.” Most people are interested in cryptocurrency because most people don’t know anything about it and they think that there’s a way to make money.
And so that is kind of the carrot that they’re holding out. And after a relationship – and some of these are relationships that are so deep, men sell their homes thinking that they’re going to marry this woman that they’ve never met. And now we know that there are models who are actually videotaping and sending them messages, and they think they’re in love. So they will go on an app that looks maybe like a legitimate app and send money. Once you go on to these apps, you lose control.
So the bottom line is this. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Never, ever move money based on a relationship that was started online. If you meet someone in person, even then you’ve got to check their own credentials. But it’s very simple. You can’t hit the “send” button. And if you’re 30, or if your parents are 70 or 80, it’s across the board. They’ve got us. They know that we want to do better. They know we’re polite and they know we’re willing to have a friendship and that we go down the black hole, and then we can never get their money.
MR JANKE: I’ll add one thing. You can’t say it better than the judge just did. The other thing we are seeing, the trend is government impersonation. And we know it’s not limited to just the U.S. We know they have rooms set up pretending they’re law enforcement from other countries. In the U.S., we tell our people the government’s never going to email you or call you saying you need to pay a fine. I would assume that is generally the same across other countries, but they now are doing that, and we know it’s not limited just to the U.S.
MODERATOR: Thank you. We have just a couple minutes left, and we’re going to take a few questions online. Ana Maria, if you can hear me, please unmute yourself and ask your question.
QUESTION: Hello, can you hear me?
MODERATOR: Yes, we can hear you.
QUESTION: Hello, my name is Ana Maria Pacuraru from Realitatea Plus TV, Romania. U.S. Attorney Pirro, Romania annulled its 2024 presidential elections over a suspected foreign influence campaign online on TikTok. As a prosecutor, where do you draw the line between criminal foreign interference and free speech online?
And Mr. Janke, with the U.S. midterms just days away, what has the FBI learned about how foreign actors use social platforms to interfere in elections, and how are you working with allies like Romania to stop it? Thank you.
MR JANKE: I’ll quickly answer the question to me. While I appreciate the question, today we’re here to talk about victims of cyber-enabled fraud, and we’re going to keep it to that. Thank you.
MODERATOR: There was the first part of her question. Ana Maria, would you mind repeating it? Okay, sorry, it was just the —
QUESTION: Can you hear me? Yeah, the – yeah. The first question was about the Romanian annulled elections in 2024 with suspect of foreign influence campaign on TikTok, if you —
MODERATOR: Okay, we’re moving on.
QUESTION: Okay.
MODERATOR: Yeah. Apologies.
Next we will go to Ahmadou Kane. Please unmute yourself.
QUESTION: Let me turn on my – hello. Can you hear me?
MODERATOR: Yes, we can hear you.
QUESTION: I don’t know if you can see me, but yes. My – I have a question on does your current anti-fraud strategy also cover cross-border investment fraud cases? And also, what cooperation do you seek from authorities in countries such as Senegal in West Africa to trace funds and protect investor?
MS PIRRO: When we were in London at the conference put together by the Crown Prosecutor in London, we discussed the fact that – hello. Now we see you.
QUESTION: Yes, yes.
MS PIRRO: We discussed the fact that we had prosecuted and taken down individuals in Ghana as well as Nigeria. The Ghana Government as well as the Nigerian Government worked with us and in fact were in London with us for what we called Disruption Week, where we bring together our private partners who work in parallel with us to identify the scams at that point in West Africa. There – it was a tremendous example of how we work together with countries that we may not have had any kind of organized cooperation with in terms of going against the fraud occurring in that country before. But I only have positive things to say about the result of that conference and the fact that I think we got about 3,200 – if that is the number, Karen – it was 3,200 individual phones, laptops, and electronic devices that had to be reviewed that will give us information and give us the opportunity to go into other cases and other scam centers.
MODERATOR: Unfortunately, that’s all the time we have today for questions. Thank you so much for joining us today and thank you to our briefers for their time. Thank you.
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