A three-month law enforcement operation spanning 30 countries has identified $39 billion in fiat and crypto funds linked to artificial intelligence-powered scam networks, according to results presented in Vienna at the conference of States Parties to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The figure covers money traced to financial fraud, AI-assisted scams and technology-facilitated sextortion, though it has been identified and traced rather than seized or returned to victims.
The operation, named Confrontation Ghost, ran from July 1 to September 30 and was coordinated by the Ministry of Interior of the United Arab Emirates. Participating countries included France, Japan, Brazil, China, Kenya, Indonesia and Myanmar. Authorities reported more than 960 arrests, 29 scam centres raided, 3,500 suspects recorded, more than 15,500 victims identified, 570 social media accounts closed and 4,126 bank accounts linked to the schemes. Investigators exchanged more than 9,000 pieces of intelligence during the operation, with support from 13 private companies, including Meta, TikTok, Mastercard, Huawei and Crypto.com, alongside INTERPOL and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance.
"Under the global leadership of the United Arab Emirates, Operation Confrontation Ghost transformed internationally shared intelligence into coordinated operational impact," said Dana Humaid Al Marzouqi, Director General of the Bureau of International Affairs at the UAE Ministry of Interior.
Monica Juma, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, credited the UAE for assembling the coalition. "I commend the United Arab Emirates for mobilizing its convening power and making this operation possible," she said.
Gaps in the coalition
Cambodia and Laos, two jurisdictions repeatedly linked to large-scale scam compound operations in Southeast Asia, do not appear on the list of 30 participating countries. The United States is also absent, despite having carried out one of the largest crypto seizures on record in October, when the Department of Justice seized 127,271 bitcoins worth approximately $15 billion. Those coins were attributed to Chen Zhi, chairman of the Cambodian conglomerate Prince Group, who is accused of running forced labour camps dedicated to pig butchering scams.
The scale of the problem identified by Operation Confrontation Ghost sits within a wider pattern of estimates from monitoring bodies. UNODC has put annual revenue from East and Southeast Asian scam networks at $37 billion, while Chainalysis estimated onchain scam revenue for 2024 at a minimum of $9.9 billion. The Global Anti-Scam Alliance puts total worldwide scam losses at $1,030 billion. For comparison, Interpol's earlier First Light operation resulted in $300 million seized and 5,800 arrests across nearly 100 countries and territories.
Industry-led monitoring continues alongside these government operations. The T3 Financial Crime Unit, founded by Tether, Tron and TRM Labs in September 2024, has blocked more than $250 million in USDT linked to scams and money laundering, pointing to a parallel track of enforcement running through stablecoin issuers and blockchain analytics firms rather than national police forces.
