The Department of Justice Announces Results of Law Enforcement and Private Industry Joint Disruption Week Targeting Online Scam Accounts and Transnational Criminal Networks Operating in West Africa

Note: B-roll and photos related to the enforcement actions can be obtained at: https://spaces.hightail.com/space/UACsRDqzHp

Transnational criminal scam networks operating from West Africa suffered major disruptions last week during a coordinated international “Joint Disruption Week,” an effort that produced arrests, seizures, and the largest-ever takedown of fraudulent social media accounts linked to scam centers in the region, announced the Department of Justice.

“Criminals beware: Law enforcement from around the world are working together, and with private industry, to find you, stop your schemes, and bring you to justice,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Criminal Division’s Cyber-Enabled Scam Initiative (CSI) was built for this brand of collaboration. The millions of bogus social media accounts taken down and dozens of arrests that took place as part of Joint Disruption Week are just the beginning. I want to thank the United Kingdom (UK)’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and its Director General, Graeme Biggar, for hosting this effort, as well as everyone who participated. I am especially grateful to the courageous law enforcement officers in Ghana and Nigeria who put themselves in harm’s way to seize evidence and arrest the criminals who prey on innocent people.”

“Transnational fraud demands a transnational response,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro for the District of Columbia, founder of the Scam Center Strike Force. “I have partnered with the NCA and the Crown Prosecutor for England and Wales to push forward cases on both sides of the Atlantic; criminals are not hindered by borders and neither are we. We will deploy our team wherever in the world transnational criminals target innocent victims.”