FBI Denies Over $1 Billion in Cyber Theft Attempts
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Recovery Asset Team has blocked more than $1 billion in attempted cyber theft since January 2025. This figure represents a 16 percent increase compared to the same timeframe under the previous administration, according to information shared with Breitbart News.
FBI Director Kash Patel, sharing these details from the FBI Office of Public Affairs, attributed this success to a significant overhaul of the bureau’s cyber operations. He indicated that the increased figures reflect a fundamental shift in how the FBI addresses financial crime.
“This demonstrates a major success in our efforts to combat cybercrime,” Patel stated. “Our Recovery Asset Team has denied over $1 billion in theft attempts since January 2025. This is a 16% increase compared to the same period before. We’ve evolved to tackle this issue head-on, disrupting almost $20 billion in scam operations globally through Operation Blackout. We’re not the FBI that hesitates – we act quickly, efficiently, and with unprecedented decisiveness.”
The Recovery Asset Team is responsible for implementing the Financial Fraud Kill Chain, a strategy designed to quickly freeze fraudulent wire transfers by collaborating with banks before the funds can be moved out of reach. In 2025 alone, they initiated around 3,900 such interventions, targeting over $1.1 billion in attempted theft, successfully freezing $679 million of it—marking a success rate of 58%, as reported in the FBI’s latest Internet Crime Complaint Center findings.
Ben Williamson, an assistant director in the FBI Office of Public Affairs, linked these recovery numbers to Operation Blackout, a campaign focused on combating overseas scam operations. Williamson noted that this effort has led to the seizure of about $17 billion, hundreds of arrests, and the rescue of thousands of trafficked individuals, while also preventing potential losses totaling approximately $660 million.
Patel has characterized these scam operations not merely as call centers but as fortified establishments. “These aren’t just offices; they’re towns and cities where individuals are forced into labor,” he explained to Fox News Digital.
The intelligence chief pointed out that older Americans are particularly vulnerable, with the bureau referring 99 victims for suicide intervention and identifying 584 scam websites. Additionally, they reported 7,670 fraudulent accounts to private companies for action.
In May, the bureau had previously announced a record-setting cryptocurrency seizure of $8 billion and made 275 arrests in Dubai, where authorities discovered that nine raided compounds were each responsible for generating around $6 million annually through fraud. An August raid at a large compound in Cambodia involved extensive searches across 28 buildings over three days.
These recent announcements come on the heels of FBI operations that Patel has been detailing in his weekly updates. In June, for instance, the FBI’s Cleveland division disrupted a Chinese phishing operation that was tied to nearly $1.9 billion in global losses as part of Operation Riptide. Earlier in April, both the FBI and the Justice Department executed a takedown of a scam center, charging two Chinese nationals, and confiscating around $700 million in cryptocurrency along with seizing 503 websites.
Notably, Americans reported over a million cybercrime complaints in 2025, a first in the history of the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, tallying up to $20.9 billion in losses, with adults aged 60 and above accounting for $7.7 billion of that total.
