Police authorities from China, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates dismantled nine crypto scam dens in Dubai and arrested 276 suspects in what China’s Ministry of Public Security has described as the first joint international law enforcement operation of its kind between the three countries.
The raids were not routine. They targeted organised rings running one of the most psychologically calculated fraud methods in the crypto space.
The Romance Was Always a Setup
The fraud dens used fake romantic relationships built on social media platforms to draw in victims. Once trust was established, scammers pushed their targets toward so-called high-return cryptocurrency investment projects. The money disappeared. The relationships were fiction from the start.
This method, commonly called pig-butchering, has become one of the dominant forms of crypto theft globally. The 2026 Chainalysis Crypto Crime Report found that AI-enabled scams, which include this type of social engineering, are now 4.5 times more profitable than traditional fraud. Impersonation scams alone surged 1,400% year on year, driven by large language models generating personalised, emotionally manipulative messages at scale.
Retail crypto holders who engage with unknown contacts on messaging apps are the primary targets. The fraud is specifically built around people who have crypto assets but limited experience with how these investment traps are structured.
What the FBI Has Been Tracking
The crackdown was led by Dubai Police, under the UAE Ministry of Interior, working alongside the FBI and China’s Ministry of Public Security. Thailand’s Royal Thai Police also participated.
“China, US, UAE police have recently carried out their first joint international law enforcement operation, targeting telecom and online fraud in Dubai. Police dismantled nine fraud dens and captured 276 suspects in the operation.”
The FBI’s involvement connects to a broader internal push. Operation Level Up, which the bureau launched in January 2024, had notified nearly 9,000 potential victims and saved an estimated $562 million in losses as of April 2026, according to the Department of Justice. That figure had not existed before the operation. Victims were found before they lost everything, not after.
Among those charged in the U.S. are Thet Min Nyi, 27, Wiliang Awang, 23, Andreas Chandra, 29, and Lisa Mariam, 29, along with two fugitive co-conspirators. The charges include federal fraud and money laundering, filed in federal court in San Diego. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
One Official’s Warning on Future Cooperation
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division was direct about the operation’s intent.
“Fraudsters who target Americans from overseas cannot operate with impunity, no matter where in the world they reside. Scam center organizers and fraudsters who defraud Americans and others will face justice in American courts and in courts around the world,” Duva said.
China’s Ministry of Public Security signalled the same direction from its side. A ministry official, cited by Xinhua, said Chinese police would continue deepening cooperation with more countries, carry out joint crackdowns, and dismantle telecom fraud operations to protect victims across all jurisdictions.
Whether that cooperation extends further into Southeast Asia, where several known scam compound networks still operate, remains to be seen.
Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, provided information used in the FBI’s San Diego investigation. That detail points to how interconnected the fraud infrastructure has become. Social platforms, crypto wallets, and coordinated scam centers are operating as one system.
The Dubai operation is the first time China, the US, and the UAE have run a joint enforcement action of this nature. It will not be the last.
