President Donald Trump, during a roundtable Wednesday, said federal law enforcement has prevented $1.6 billion in losses from cyber scams this year.
“Federal law enforcement has been able to warn over 10,000 Americans targeted for victimization,” Trump said at the White House event. U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin were among those who attended.
“Countless American victims have had their life savings, bank accounts, college funds and more emptied by these thieves,” Trump said. “We have marshaled the full force of the federal government to combat this scourge.”
A March executive order tasked the Department of Justice with focusing on prosecuting cyber scammers. Another executive order from August directed the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate with private companies on surveilling foreign criminal hacking organizations.
Patel said the FBI took down 20 scam compounds around the world.
An FBI report shows Americans filed at least 1 million complaints about internet scams with the agency in 2025. That’s up 17% from the year before.
The Department of Justice, Blanche said, has “evolved from delegating” cybercrimes to single U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to leveraging its cyber-enabled scam initiative. The initiative deploys dozens of prosecutors across all of U.S. Attorneys’ Offices “to continue driving prosecutions and helping victims,” Blanche said.
An operation that the FBI and Dubai police conducted resulted in almost 300 arrests, Blanche said, as well as the dissolution of nine scam centers. During another operation, Blanche said, U.S. authorities seized a criminal online marketplace.
Federal authorities also froze nearly $1 billion in cryptocurrency linked to overseas scammers, Trump said.
Reuters noted the president and his family members are very involved in cryptocurrency, with an investigation by the news outlet finding he and his sons netted at least $2.3 billion from their main ventures. Investors lost the same amount, Reuters reported.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, a shareholder of Circle Internet Group alleged Trump and the crypto business he and his sons founded “corruptly” profited off more than $2 billion in payments from a foreign government.
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