Trump Hosts White House Roundtable on Overseas Crypto Scams: $833 Million in Fraudulent Transactions Halted, 503 Scam Websites Seized
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump hosted a roundtable on cybercrime prevention in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday afternoon, October 21, meeting with cabinet officials on his administration's campaign against overseas cryptocurrency scam networks that prey on Americans. Figures released by a White House official showed that, under this administration, law enforcement agencies have halted about $833 million in cryptocurrency transactions linked to overseas scams; a Homeland Security task force has seized 503 fraudulent cryptocurrency websites; and officials have directly notified nearly 9,000 U.S. citizens that they were being victimized.
"For years, our nation has faced a growing menace of cybercrime perpetrated by fraudsters, hackers, and scammers who try to steal Americans' money, prey on senior citizens, and exploit children through fraud, ransomware, impersonation schemes, and other illegal acts," Trump said in his opening remarks.
Attending the roundtable were Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross. "President Trump is unleashing every available tool to stop foreign-based, organized criminal organizations that exploit Americans in cyberspace," a White House official said.
The roundtable came as scam losses reach record levels. Data from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) show that Americans filed more than one million internet crime complaints in 2025, up 17% from 2024; reported cryptocurrency-related losses came to about $11.37 billion, of which cryptocurrency investment fraud accounted for about $7.2 billion; Americans aged 60 and over suffered the heaviest losses, about $4.43 billion. Most of these schemes are run by criminal enterprises in Southeast Asia: scammers build trust with victims over social media, messaging apps or dating platforms, then steer them into phony investment platforms — the so-called "pig butchering" scams — run from compounds in Burma, Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines, some of them staffed by trafficked workers forced to carry out the fraud.
On enforcement, Trump signed an executive order on March 6 directing federal agencies to prioritize identifying and prosecuting online scammers. The multi-agency Scam Center Strike Force, announced in November 2025 by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, targets the Southeast Asian scam centers and had restrained about $938 million in cryptocurrency as of September; the Strike Force recently seized the infrastructure of the Xinbi marketplace and restrained more than $52 million in cryptocurrency. The government has also imposed successive rounds of sanctions on the technical and financial infrastructure behind the scam centers.
The White House said the effort focuses on seizing fraudulent investment websites, freezing stolen funds before they leave the financial system, and returning recovered money to victims.
Related: SEC Joins Global Regulators for World Investor Week: Bulletin Warns of Relationship Investment Scams
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：特朗普总统10月21日在白宫东厅主持网络犯罪圆桌会，左为国防部长 Pete Hegseth，右为司法部长 Todd Blanche。画面：白宫官方视频截图。President Trump hosts a cybercrime roundtable in the East Room of the White House on October 21, flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (left) and Attorney General Todd Blanche (right). Frame: The White House (official video).
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