Trump Says Nearly $1B in Scam-Linked Crypto Is Frozen as DOJ Goes Nationwide

Published October 22, 2026, 2:45 PM PKT. Based on the U.S. Department of Justice Scam Center Strike Force page (primary source), the Reuters report on the October 21, 2026 White House roundtable, and reporting by Unchained, TokenPost, and AMBCrypto on October 22, 2026 (secondary sources). This is the first MABOnChain article on the nationwide scam initiative announced at the roundtable, and it is distinct from MABOnChain's October 14, 2026 article on the Justice Department Joint Disruption Week operation in West Africa.

President Donald Trump said on October 21, 2026 that his administration had frozen nearly $1 billion in cryptocurrency tied to foreign scammers, using a White House roundtable on cybercrime to promote its push against overseas fraud rings that target Americans, according to Unchained and Reuters. Trump also said federal authorities had prevented at least $1.6 billion in losses this year and had shut down more than 500 fraudulent websites, according to a post from the White House Rapid Response account cited by Unchained. At the same event, he said federal law enforcement had warned more than 10,000 Americans targeted for victimization, Reuters reported.

The $938,460,156.82 restrained figure, and what restrained means

The verifiable number behind the rounded $1 billion claim is on the Justice Department's own page. The Scam Center Strike Force Crypto Seizure team has restrained $938,460,156.82 in cryptocurrency from these schemes, the page says, in a tally dated October 15, 2026, according to Unchained and TokenPost. Restrained is a legal status, not a refund. It means authorities have taken steps to hold the funds back from movement, and it is not the same as money paid back to victims, Unchained and TokenPost both note. Returning funds to victims is among the strike force's stated goals, TokenPost reports, and the Justice Department page says its Crypto Seizure team is focused on recovering stolen funds and returning them to victims. Unchained also notes that the White House post did not say where its nearly $1 billion figure came from, which is why this article treats $938,460,156.82 as the documented tally and the $1 billion as the president's rounded claim.

The strike force itself was formed in 2025, according to the Justice Department page, and combines the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia with the Criminal Division, the FBI, and the U.S. Secret Service, with partners including the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Its focus is cryptocurrency-related fraud run out of Southeast Asia, the page says, and its teams investigate scam compounds in Cambodia, Laos, and Burma, including leaders described as Chinese organized crime affiliates. TokenPost reports that the strike force launched in November 2025, that federal actions tied to the campaign have included seizing 503 fake investment websites, and that, as of March 2026, its Operation Level Up had warned 8,935 potential victims, of whom 77 percent were unaware of the scam, with warnings estimated to have prevented $562,726,245 in losses. Those warning and website figures are separate measures from the cryptocurrency under restraint, TokenPost stresses, and they should not be added to the $938 million tally.

A nationwide initiative across all 94 U.S. Attorneys offices

The new development at the roundtable was the structure, not just the totals. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department is no longer leaving these cases to individual U.S. Attorneys offices, Unchained reports. "Because of the magnitude of this issue, it demands a nationwide response," Blanche said in remarks the department shared on X, according to Unchained. He described a newly established cyber-enabled scam initiative, run by the Criminal Division, that deploys dozens of prosecutors across all 94 of those offices. In practical terms, that moves scam-center cases from a set of local files into a coordinated national docket, with prosecutors in every federal district able to work the same kind of case under the same initiative. The roundtable also carried the administration's broader framing: White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Trump had effectively declared cyber warfare against the cyber criminals, according to Unchained and Reuters.

That framing sits on an earlier order. Trump signed Executive Order 14390 on March 6, 2026, which told the attorney general to continue to prioritize prosecutions of people engaged in cyber-enabled fraud, including scam centers, Unchained reports. TokenPost adds that the order directs agencies to review tools against transnational cybercrime, prioritize prosecutions, prepare an action plan, and prepare a recommendation on restoring funds to victims with money seized or forfeited from perpetrators. Both the order and the strike force were in place before the October 21 meeting, TokenPost notes, so the roundtable was a showcase and an escalation of an existing apparatus, not the creation of the apparatus itself.

20 scam compounds dismantled, more than 500 websites shut down

FBI Director Kash Patel said at the roundtable that the bureau had dismantled 20 scam compounds around the world, according to Reuters and Unchained. The compounds are the physical side of the fraud: organized sites, largely in Southeast Asia, where workers run fake investment platforms, fraudulent websites, and online impersonation schemes aimed at Americans, according to AMBCrypto's account of the crackdown. The website figure is the digital side. Trump said authorities had shut down more than 500 fraudulent websites, and TokenPost puts the strike-force-linked website seizures at 503 fake investment websites. The two figures describe the same campaign from different angles, and the distinction matters for victims: a seized website stops new victims from landing on that page, but it does not by itself return money already sent.

The roundtable came less than two weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, with early voting already open in many states, Unchained notes, and Reuters framed the event as an anti-fraud message ahead of that vote. That political timing does not change the enforcement figures, but it explains why the administration chose a White House stage, with the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin present, according to Reuters and the pre-event reporting. Readers should weigh the claims accordingly: the restrained total is documented on a Justice Department page, the prevented-losses total is a presidential claim, and the nationwide initiative is a structural announcement whose results will show up in future prosecutions, not in the roundtable itself.

The scale behind the roundtable: 1 million complaints, $11.366 billion

The complaint figures explain why the administration is treating this as a national problem rather than a niche crypto problem. The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 1 million internet-crime complaints in 2025, up about 17 percent from the 859,532 it logged in 2024, according to Unchained, citing the center's data. Within that total, the center counted 181,565 complaints involving cryptocurrency in calendar year 2025, with $11.366 billion in reported losses, up 22 percent from 2024, TokenPost reports. Those crypto-involved figures cover complaints with any cryptocurrency connection, TokenPost cautions, and do not isolate investment scams run through overseas scam centers, so the total is broader than the losses tied to the strike force's focus. AMBCrypto, citing DeFiLlama data, puts 2026 losses so far at $2.345 billion across 305 incidents, a different measure again, covering reported crypto losses in 2026 rather than FBI complaints. The three totals measure different things, and conflating them would overstate what the strike force has recovered.

What to watch next is also clear from the gaps in the roundtable itself. The first marker is victim restitution: how much of the $938,460,156.82 under restraint is actually returned, and to whom, since the Justice Department page lists returning funds as a goal but the roundtable gave no restitution total. The second is prosecutions filed under the new nationwide initiative, which will show whether dozens of prosecutors across 94 offices produce cases beyond the strike force's existing Southeast Asia work. The third is the website and compound counts: whether the 503 seized sites and 20 dismantled compounds are replaced as fast as they are taken down, which is the usual pattern in scam-center enforcement. The fourth is the prevented-losses claim: whether the $1.6 billion figure is ever broken down into warned victims, blocked transfers, and seized funds, or remains a single presidential total. Until those markers resolve, the accurate state of play is a documented $938.5 million restrained, a claimed $1.6 billion prevented, and a newly nationwide prosecutorial structure aimed at the scam centers behind both numbers.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, Scam Center Strike Force (tally $938,460,156.82 in cryptocurrency restrained), primary source
• Reuters, by Courtney Rozen, Trump says fraud investigations make very big dent in overseas scams (October 21, 2026), secondary source
• Unchained, Trump Says Nearly $1 Billion in Scam-Linked Crypto Is Frozen as DOJ Goes Nationwide (October 22, 2026), secondary source
• TokenPost, Trump Cites Nearly $1 Billion in Crypto Frozen in Scam Crackdown (October 22, 2026), secondary source
• AMBCrypto, U.S. restrains $938M in crypto amid Donald Trump's crackdown on overseas scams (October 22, 2026), secondary source