Inside Operation Blackout: Patel reveals global scam ‘cities’ targeting your parents’ life savings
FIRST ON FOX: FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau is expanding its global hunt for sprawling scam compounds that prey heavily on Americans, telling Fox News Digital that Operation...
By Fox News · Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau is expanding its global hunt for sprawling scam compounds that prey heavily on Americans, telling Fox News Digital that Operation Blackout has seized roughly $17 billion tied to the schemes. "At 71 years old, I'm old enough to know that people my age are certainly often targeted because of our unfamiliarity with certain new technologies. Thanks so much for looking out for us," one victim told the FBI. "I watched my grandmother lose her life savings to scammers and I would love to see them all be put away," said another victim. Operation Blackout is the FBI’s global campaign to identify, disrupt and dismantle foreign scam compounds targeting Americans, combining overseas raids and asset seizures with efforts to cut off the networks’ communications, rescue trafficked workers and return stolen money to victims. FBI WRAPS UP CYBERCRIME OPERATION TARGETING GLOBAL NETWORKS PREYING ON AMERICANS Patel said the FBI-led initiative is targeting criminal syndicates operating massive scam compounds across Southeast Asia and the Middle East, where trafficked workers are forced to carry out fraud schemes against victims thousands of miles away. "Unfortunately, the majority of the targets are senior citizens in America ," Patel told Fox News, pointing to schemes carried out through social media, phone calls, text messages and Telegram. FBI SEIZES RECORD-SETTING $8 BILLION IN CRYPTOCURRENCY AMID INTERCONTINENTAL 'SCAM COMPOUND' CRACKDOWN In one common version of the scheme, criminals cultivate an online friendship or relationship with a victim before steering them toward a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platform. Victims may initially believe their investments are generating significant returns, only to discover they cannot withdraw their money. "These are towns, these are cities," Patel said of the scam compounds targeted by the operation. "These are actual villages with structures where they force people into forced labo…