An organized campaign against scam operations in West Africa has led to the arrest of 28 people in Ghana and Nigeria, with the Justice Department identifying roughly $11 million in cryptocurrency that may be eligible for seizure. Beyond the arrests, the more consequential move was the effort to shut down the infrastructure and financial operations behind these networks.

Going after the accounts, not just the operators

The campaign, known as "Joint Disruption Week," began on October 6 at the London headquarters of the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency. Investigators joined forces with companies including Meta, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Binance, and Coinbase, among others. The coordination spanned four jurisdictions, pairing US and UK agencies with police in Ghana and Nigeria. Together, they took down more than 3.7 million accounts, Pages, and Groups, and shared intelligence on more than 30 suspected scam centers.

"We are not simply trying to stop individual scams," FBI official Matthew Floyd told Axios. "We intend to dismantle the criminal enterprises behind them."

US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said a piece of information from Meta made it possible to organize the campaign.

The numbers behind the raids

Ghanaian authorities arrested 19 people and seized 303 devices, while Nigerian officers arrested nine and seized 53. In Ghana, officials also found 117 trafficking victims who had been forced to carry out scams; they are awaiting repatriation to Nigeria. The discovery highlights the human side of an operation otherwise counted in devices, arrests, and dollar figures.

Officials noted that the $11 million may potentially be frozen but has not been confirmed as seized. Coinbase said it identified more than 65 active victims and prevented more than $415,000 in losses.

According to FBI Director Kash Patel, agents "arrested dozens of criminal actors, seized hundreds of devices, identified at least $11 million in potentially freezable funds, and truly saved lives."

A smaller, messier version of the Southeast Asia problem

Networks in West Africa are less concentrated and more diffused than their Southeast Asian counterparts. Their schemes range from fake job offers and romance scams to police impersonation and bogus recovery services. That diffusion makes enforcement harder, since investigators must target numerous accounts and payment channels rather than a handful of centralized operations.

The financial stakes are substantial. Chainalysis estimates that crypto scams could have stolen more than $17 billion, while impersonation fraud rose by more than 1,400% in 2025. The $11 million identified in West Africa is significant, but it is far smaller than the amounts reported in previous American operations against networks in Southeast Asia.

Context important for that comparison. Last April, the Justice Department cracked down on a series of Chinese-led fraud schemes in Burma and Cambodia, targeting everything from bogus investment promises to trafficking rings; by that point, authorities had seized more than $700 million in total. In September, investigators moved against Xinbi, a Chinese-language site providing money laundering services to scammers, in an operation that grabbed an additional $52 million and brought total funds seized to around $938 million. Unlike those funds, the $11 million tied to West Africa is only potentially freezable.

The hard part is getting the money back

A September FinCEN alert explains how scammers move proceeds through layers of wallets and intermediaries. TRM Labs estimates that Chinese-language laundering networks processed more than $100 billion in 2025.

Speed presents another barrier. A study of 2,955 Tether freezes found an average gap of more than two hours between the initiation and implementation of a freeze, allowing funds to escape. FATF findings highlighted blind spots that offshore exchanges may face, including a Nigerian case involving a frozen wallet holding around $600 million.

For the $11 million identified in this operation, those mechanics are the immediate hurdle between a flag and an actual seizure.

What it means for exchanges and the wider market

Binance, Coinbase, and stablecoin issuers face growing pressure to flag suspicious flows, file reports, and respond quickly, obligations that raise compliance costs. Faster intervention could strengthen confidence in crypto markets. But flagged funds are not recovered funds, and tougher controls must avoid disrupting legitimate users.

The most concrete measures of follow-through are administrative: whether the $11 million moves from potentially freezable to actually frozen or seized, and how quickly the 117 trafficking victims found in Ghana are repatriated to Nigeria.