On Monday, Europol announced a takedown of its cryptocurrency investment fraud ring, which has laundered 460 million euros ($540 million) from more than 5,000 casualties worldwide.
He said the operation was carried out by Spanish Guardian citizens, along with support from law enforcement agencies in Estonia, France and the United States. Europol said the syndicate investigation began in 2023.
Additionally, five suspects behind the cryptocurrency fraud were arrested on June 25, 2025. Three people were arrested in the Canary Islands, while the other two were arrested from Madrid.
“To carry out their misconduct, criminal network leaders are said to have used fellow nets that spread around the world to raise funds through cash withdrawals, bank transfers and crypto transport,” Europol said.
These types of fraud often follow a pattern known as cryptocurrency confidence or romance bait (formerly “pig slaughter”). The con man slowly builds trust with his victims over weeks or months. Before you convince them to invest in fake crypto platforms, for example, through dating apps or friendly chats. Behind the scenes, scammers use social engineering tricks, such as fake trading dashboards and scripted conversations, to maintain their illusions. Once money is deposited, it travels to multiple accounts in a process called layering, making it difficult for authorities to track it.
Cybercriminals are believed to have established Hong Kong-based corporate and banking networks, and illegally obtained funds are routed in different exchanges with different people’s names and different exchanges through a maze of payment gateways and user accounts.
The development comes shortly after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking to recover more than $225 million in cryptocurrency in cryptocurrency related to the cryptocurrency trust (aka Romance Baitong) scam that runs through Vietnam and the Philippines.
Europol described the “scale, diversity, refinement, and reach” of these online fraud schemes as “unprecedented,” explaining it as being on track to outweigh serious, organized crime thanks to the increased adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
“The integration of generative artificial intelligence by cross-border criminal groups involved in cyber-enabled fraud is a complex and surprising trend observed in Southeast Asia, representing the multiplier of the powerful forces of criminal activity.”
According to an Interpol report last week, Cybercrime’s report accounts for more than 30% of reported crimes in West Africa and the Eastern West and East. This includes online scams, ransomware, business email compromises (BEC), and digital sexttors.
“Cybercrime continues to outperform legal systems designed to stop it,” Interpol said, adding that “75% of countries surveyed said the legal framework and prosecutorial capacity need to be improved.”
What’s hard to fight this type of fraud is how criminals use legal loopholes and fragmented international law. Today, many scammers use fake personas built with stolen or AI-generated data to register accounts or bank access. They also recruit financial mules and move money, often without realizing that they are part of the crime.
To separate such investment fraud schemes, unconscious people from Asia and Africa are seduced by Southeast Asia with favorable employment opportunities and forcibly detain them within “fraud compounds” run by transnational organized criminal groups born from China.
Cambodia has identified 53 fraudulent compounds in Cambodia, and nonprofits say “human rights violations continue to occur and occur, including human trafficking, torture, other abuse, forced labor, child labour and deprivation of freedom and slavery.”
Many of those forced by these fraudulent compounds were originally committed to working in technology or sales overseas. When they arrive, their passports are taken away and they are forced to fraudulent others under the threat of violence or debt.
Last year, the US Institute of Peace revealed that cyber fraud rates are estimated to exceed $12.5 billion per year in Cambodia. This is half the country’s official gross domestic product (GDP).
The illegal operation has said that the Indian embassy in Cambodia has a notable warning on its website, urging citizens to be wary of hitting the hands of traffickers under the pretext of a well-paid job, and that job seekers are being forced to take on online financial fraud and other illegal activities.
Adding more context to criminal behavior is a recent report from ProPublica, where Chinese telegrams and groups are scamming fraudsters’ ability to rent US bank accounts on Bank of America, Chase, Citibank and PNC. Telegram has begun to take action against some of these channels.
Meta is said to have detected and deleted more than 7 million Facebook accounts related to fraud centres in Asia and the Middle East since its launch in 2024, in accordance with a statement shared with the investigative journalism organization.
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