“We are not waiting for the scammers to hit our citizens. We are going out there in full force.” — FBI Director Kash Patel
Internet fraudsters targeting Americans have been placed on notice as the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) intensifies its global crackdown on international scam networks.
FBI Director Kash Patel has issued a strong warning to individuals and criminal organisations involved in online fraud, making it clear that American authorities are no longer simply waiting for victims to report that they have been defrauded.
Instead, through Operation Blackout, the FBI says it is taking the fight directly to the international networks and compounds allegedly responsible for large-scale scams targeting American citizens.
According to the FBI, Operation Blackout is a global campaign designed to identify, disrupt and dismantle large-scale international scam compounds and the transnational criminal networks operating them. In testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2026, Patel said the campaign had already resulted in more than $15 billion in illicit assets being seized, more than 300 arrests and significant disruption of criminal infrastructure.
The campaign has since continued to expand.
In a recent operation in Ghana, more than 130 people were arrested or detained in a suspected scam compound, while authorities identified nearly $10 million in losses involving 89 victims and seized more than 300 electronic devices.
Patel has repeatedly stressed that the FBI is pursuing the criminal infrastructure behind these schemes rather than focusing only on individual scammers. The bureau has described some of the targeted locations as sprawling scam compounds where criminal networks allegedly operate sophisticated fraud schemes, sometimes using trafficked people who are forced to participate.
The crackdown is particularly significant for online fraud schemes involving cryptocurrency investment scams, romance fraud, social engineering, sextortion and other forms of financially motivated cybercrime.
The FBI has also taken action involving Nigerians. In August 2026, Nigerian nationals Mudasiru Afeez Olawale and Adebola Festus Adekunle were extradited from Nigeria to the United States to face federal charges connected to financially motivated sextortion cases. The FBI highlighted their cases as part of its broader international effort against transnational online crime.
The message from the FBI is therefore increasingly direct: criminals who target Americans online should not assume that operating outside the United States will shield them from American law enforcement.
Patel has warned that the bureau is prepared to work with international partners to locate suspects, disrupt their operations, seize illicit proceeds and bring alleged offenders before the courts.
“If you prey on the American people, we will find you, and we will bring you to justice,” the FBI director warned.
For Nigerian internet fraudsters popularly referred to as “Yahoo boys,” the development should serve as a serious warning. The internet may have no physical borders, but international law-enforcement cooperation increasingly does.
With the FBI strengthening partnerships with foreign authorities and targeting the financial, technological and physical infrastructure supporting scam operations, hiding behind fake identities, overseas locations or cryptocurrency transactions may no longer provide the protection criminals once expected.
Operation Blackout is essentially sending one message to international scammers: the FBI is coming after the networks, the money and the people behind them.
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