Americans reported losing nearly $21 billion to online scams and cyber fraud last year. On Wednesday, President Trump packed the East Room with his top law enforcement and security officials to make one thing clear: the federal government is done shrugging at it.
Trump said his administration has “marshaled the full force of the federal government to combat this scourge.” He said the government has frozen nearly $1 billion in cryptocurrency tied to foreign scammers.
Who was at the table
Attorney General Todd Blanche, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, FBI Director Kash Patel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton all joined the roundtable.
“We have people who do nothing but this, and they are really good at it,” Trump said.
.@AAGMcDonald: "These cases and allegations reveal the scope of deception, greed, and human exploitation permeating SNAP fraud schemes. These are not paperwork crimes. The tools of justice must be, and are, fully activated to protect the innocent, provide for our most vulnerable, punish the wrongdoer, and restore the public’s confidence that those who engage in fraud will indeed be brought to justice."
— National Fraud Enforcement Division (@DOJFraudDiv) October 21, 2026
The numbers
Officials laid out what the crackdown has produced so far:
- Nearly $1 billion in crypto frozen. The Justice Department’s Scam Center Strike Force lists $938,460,156.82 restrained as of Oct. 15.
- At least $1.6 billion in losses prevented this year, according to the White House.
- More than 500 fraudulent websites shut down.
- More than 10,000 Americans warned that they were being targeted.
- 20 scam compounds dismantled worldwide, according to Patel.
- Hundreds of arrests from a joint FBI operation with Dubai.
Prosecutors in every district
Blanche said the Justice Department will no longer leave these cases to individual U.S. attorneys’ offices. A new Criminal Division initiative will put dozens of prosecutors on scam cases across all 94 offices. Miller said Trump has effectively declared cyber warfare on the criminals.
The push builds on Executive Order 14390, signed March 6, which tells the attorney general to prioritize prosecutions of cyber-enabled fraud, including scam centers. An August memorandum expanded the government’s tools to disrupt the networks. The Strike Force, set up in 2025 with the FBI and Secret Service, goes after crypto fraud run out of Southeast Asia.
Seniors pay the most
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received 1,008,597 complaints in 2025, reporting nearly $21 billion in losses, up 26% from 2024. Americans over 60 lost about $7.7 billion. Fake investment schemes were the biggest category at roughly $8.6 billion. AI-driven scams cost nearly $893 million in their first year of separate tracking. The Consumer Federation of America puts the true yearly cost, counting unreported losses, above $148 billion, about $1,009 per household.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who chairs the Senate Aging Committee, called the scams disgusting and said he was glad the president is focused on them.
The crypto-news site Unchained noted the White House didn’t say where the “nearly $1B” figure came from, and that restrained crypto is frozen, not yet returned to victims.
The bottom line
For years, Washington treated a widow losing her savings to a fake “investment” text as her own bad luck. She got a complaint form and a case number. The losses kept climbing past $20 billion a year, and the crooks kept working from compounds overseas.
That is changing. Freezing nearly a billion dollars, knocking down 20 scam compounds and putting prosecutors in every district is what government looks like when it does its real job: protecting citizens from predators. Conservatives don’t want Washington running your life. We do want it guarding the front door.
The next test is getting that money back to the people it was stolen from. Until then, the scam bosses have their answer. The free ride is over.