US Treasury wants banks to be better at filing file cyber scam reports after noting nearly $13 billion in losses since 2023

FinCEN warns US banks of industrial‑scale scam centers in Southeast Asia stealing billions Victims coerced into crypto “investments,” later re‑scammed with fake recovery fees Laundered via digital assets, mixers, shell firms, and Chinese underground banking networks American financial institutions need to be more vigilant when it comes to identifying and preventing money scams, especially those perpetrated by industrial-scale scam centers in Southeast Asia.

This was the warning issued by the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) alongside a long list of red flags these institutions can monitor in order to stay safe.

Large, dangerous crime rings The scams are not done by small groups of teenagers, tricking the elderly from the depths of their parents’ basement, but are often large, well-organized crime machines responsible for billions of dollars in damages, around the world, every year.

In 2025 alone, US victims lost more than $7.2 billion to these scams, the warning said, and between September 2023 and December 2025, nearly $13 billion was stolen from Americans.

The criminal organizations are primarily located in Cambodia, Burma, and Laos.

They trafficked hundreds of thousands of people to various centers around the countries, taking their passports and forcing them into participating in online fraud.

Those that don’t meet certain quotas are often beaten - and some victims were liberated after their families paid ransom demands, while others ended up being coerced into commercial sex work.

To make matters worse, they are resilient to law enforcement activities because some of them are either endorsed, or outright operated by, local corrupt officials.

FinCEN says the criminals are engaged in all sorts of fraudulent activity, but stressed that investment fraud is, by far, the most popular one.

The scammers would reach out to their victim either pretending to be a romantic interest, or a financial advisor.

Sometimes, they would even begin the conversation by saying they mistyped a phone number.

After extensively communicating with their victim for a while, they try to persuade them into making an “investment”, often using cryptocurrencies, and promising unrealistically high returns.

This is also, FinCEN stresses, is when the scams can most easily be identified: “Most digital asset payments by victims to scam center operators originate from money services businesses (MSBs) offering digital asset services, includingdigital asset kiosks, according to FinCEN analysis and law enforcement information.

Based on FinCEN’s analysis of BSA reporting, scammers often instruct their victims to open accounts withMSBs offeringdigital asset services to purchase specific types of digital assets.