A coordinated push by police forces and technology companies against scam operations in West Africa led to 28 arrests and the removal of more than 3.7 million social media accounts, Pages and Groups, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday. The operation shows governments now treating social networks, crypto exchanges and blockchain-analysis firms as working partners in fraud enforcement, not just recipients of takedown requests.

What Happened

According to the department’s announcement, the effort, called Joint Disruption Week, ran the week of Oct. 6 at the London headquarters of the U.K.’s National Crime Agency. The department described it as the first coordinated effort of its kind focused on West Africa.

U.S. participants included the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, the Scam Center Strike Force run by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Treasury Department and Homeland Security Investigations. Cybercrime units from Nigeria and Ghana took part, along with INTERPOL and law enforcement from Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand.

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Fourteen companies joined: Meta, Adobe, Binance, Coinbase, Cyjax, Elliptic, Chainalysis, Flashpoint, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Silent Push, Starlink and TRM Labs. The department said Meta helped coordinate the event.

Results, as the department reported them:

  • 19 arrests and 303 devices seized in the Sasaabi area of Accra, Ghana, where authorities also identified 117 human trafficking victims awaiting return to Nigeria and 89 scam victims with losses of about $8.3 million.
  • Nine arrests and 53 devices seized in Nigeria.
  • More than 3.7 million accounts, Pages and Groups removed, leads shared on more than 30 suspected scam centers, and more than $11 million in potentially freezable funds identified.

CyberScoop reported that Meta removed the accounts from Facebook and Instagram and that most targeted people in the U.S. and U.K. The targeted schemes include impersonating police, so-called digital arrest extortion, in which victims are told they face charges unless they pay, and fake cryptocurrency investments known as pig butchering.

Why It Matters

The money at stake is growing. The release cites FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center data showing reported investment-scam losses rose from $3.96 billion in 2023 to $5.8 billion in 2024, and that losses from investment scams with a cryptocurrency link rose 24% in 2025 to more than $7.2 billion. The department notes that victim-reported figures likely understate the real total.

For companies, the operation sets an expectation. Platforms, payment firms and exchanges that hold the accounts and money trails scammers depend on are being asked to share intelligence in real time across borders. The release says the Strike Force wants U.S. businesses to take more proactive steps to protect users. Impersonation scams aimed at consumers also exploit the names of banks, retailers and government agencies, so the brands being copied have a stake in how far this model extends.

“Transnational fraud demands a transnational response,” Jeanine Ferris Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in the release.

The Limits

Account removals are fast; prosecutions and asset recovery are not. Matthew Floyd, an FBI deputy assistant director, told CyberScoop that “identifying the assets is the easy part,” and that seizures require building probable cause, so the funds identified will feed ongoing investigations. The department itself says lasting accountability depends on sustained action against the people running the schemes, not only their online infrastructure.

The release also compares West African scam centers to the compounds uncovered in Southeast Asia, which recruit workers, train them in manipulation tactics and run fraud across multiple platforms.

What to Watch

How much of the roughly $11 million is actually frozen, and whether the arrests lead to charges, including any in the U.S. or U.K., will measure the operation’s effect. Floyd told CyberScoop such meetings will recur at intervals not yet set. Pirro said in the release that she is working with the National Crime Agency and the Crown Prosecutor for England and Wales to advance cases on both sides of the Atlantic.