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Trump's White House cybercrime event targets overseas scam networks, though he never said 'crypto'
Summary
President Donald Trump planned to use a White House event on cybercrime on Wednesday, Oct. 21, to highlight his administration's work against overseas criminal networks running crypto scams, according to a White House official cited by CoinDesk and, via Reuters, by Bitcoin Magazine.
The administration says U.S. law enforcement has halted about $833 million in crypto tied to overseas scams and that the Homeland Security Task Force has seized 503 fraudulent crypto websites, CoinDesk reported.
Bitcoin Magazine said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, FBI Director Kash Patel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Todd Blanche were expected to attend.
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 181,565 crypto-related complaints and $11.366 billion in losses for 2025, with crypto investment scams accounting for $7.2 billion, Bitcoin Magazine reported.
Updates
- Update, : Oct. 21: The roundtable took place. Cointelegraph reports Trump said federal officials had frozen $1 billion in "cybercurrency tied to foreign scammers" and prevented $1.6 billion in 2025 losses, figures that differ from the roughly $833 million in halted crypto a White House official cited to CoinDesk before the event. Per Cointelegraph, neither Trump nor Attorney General Todd Blanche explicitly said "cryptocurrency" or "digital assets."
Key facts
- The official said the government has also notified almost 9,000 U.S. citizens that they were being victimized, according to CoinDesk.
- The event follows a March executive order directing the Justice Department to prioritize identifying and prosecuting online scammers, Bitcoin Magazine reported.
- The FBI traced much of the activity to organized criminal groups in Cambodia, Laos and Burma that use human-trafficking victims as forced labor in scam compounds, Bitcoin Magazine reported.
- Treasury formed a multi-agency Scam Center Strike Force last November to pursue so-called "pig butchering" operations, CoinDesk noted.
- CoinDesk added that Trump's personal crypto ties have drawn self-dealing accusations ahead of the midterm elections.
- At the roundtable, Trump said Americans lost more than $20 billion to cybercrime in 2025 through impersonation schemes, ransomware, scam centers and other methods, Cointelegraph reported.
- Trump said officials froze $1 billion in "cybercurrency tied to foreign scammers" and prevented $1.6 billion in losses in 2025; that differs from the roughly $833 million in halted crypto a White House official cited to CoinDesk ahead of the event.